My Favourite Afternoon Tea

My name is Kath and I look after the business visits and events marketing for Windsor.  We have a dedicated Twitter, LinkedIn and e-newsletter focussed on the conference and events sector.  Features and news are on our partner event spaces including beautiful hotels, conference and meeting spaces.  We help PAs, wedding organisers and event executives find the right space for their event with suggestions for what delegates and guests can do before and after, so I know there’s a fantastic selection on offer in the area.

Last year I was invited along for a friend’s birthday afternoon tea at the stunning Cliveden Hotel (I just love having friends with generous husbands!)  The drive up is beautiful, through National Trust grounds, a long gravel driveway up to the exquisite Fountain of Love commissioned by Lord Astor in 1897 and then the beautiful hotel is right in front of you.

Cliveden is a Grade I listed Stately Home.  It was owned by the millionaire Astor family and is the scene of fabulously decadent parties attended by England’s famous faces of the time in the early 1900s.  It also played host to Christine Keeler at the start of the notorious Profumo scandal.

When you go into the hotel, you’re met with a vast wood-panelled lounge from which various dining rooms lead.  From the dining rooms, you have a beautiful view over the formal gardens and further afield the Thames towards Boulters Lock in Maidenhead.  As is fitting for a five-star award-winning hotel, the staff are friendly, polite and always there when you need them.

We were shown to a corner table with the perfect floor-to-ceiling window.  The afternoon tea was absolutely delightful – neatly cut sandwiches, delicious pastries, sugar-coated cakes and tea served in beautiful bone china cups.  The hotel’s afternoon tea speciality is red velvet cake.  The original recipe for red velvet cake is well known in the United States from New York City's famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel which was built by Cliveden's former owner William Waldorf Astor (1st Viscount Astor).

To enjoy an afternoon tea at Cliveden is to feel thoroughly pampered and we’ll definitely find a reason to return!

We’re very lucky to have such a great selection of hotels on our doorstep, each with their own unique history, signature dishes, stunning grounds and relaxing spas.  Perhaps my challenge for 2020/2021 will be to sample some more afternoon teas: Coworth Park, Stoke Park, The Langley and Oakley Court here I come!

Top three things I’m looking forward to doing post-lockdown

1. Spending a day shopping and dining in Windsor and Eton. Here’s a blog I wrote about a day out in Windsor.
2. I’ve always wanted to dine on board Bateaux Windsor; a moonlit evening meal on the Thames sounds idyllic.
3. I miss going to POWMAK Pilates.  They have fantastic reformer Pilates classes.  I’ll definitely be needing them again with all the culinary treats I’m planning!