AN INSPECTOR CALLS

He pays his way... and tells it like it is

HORWOOD HOUSE is a magnificent manor built in 1911 with a long drive, mullion windows and impressive gardens. It used to be owned by the De Vere group, when it was known primarily as a conference hotel. In 2019 it was bought by Karim Kassam, the head of Ziz Properties, for £15.5 million and has had several more millions spent on it.

Mr Kassam says he wants to attract the ‘leisure market’ but I fear it’s a lost cause. The various extensions and redbrick wings are so ugly that you feel sorry for the main house presiding over such an unsympathetic sprawl.

When I arrive after dark in a taxi from nearby Milton Keynes station, the driver stops outside the front door but it’s all locked up and dark. The reception area has been moved round the corner behind automatic sliding doors, where gold radiators and laminated flooring give way to a modern version of swirly whirly carpets, with signs everywhere telling you how to get from A to B.

The sorry truth is that the signs come in handy because there are so many corridors, so many little staircases, so many identical sharp turns.

There are more than 150 rooms; a spa (with indoor pool and gym) and ten ‘event spaces’. My dinner, bed and breakfast package costs £139, which is good value, except that the room,