Birch house: the new owners are gearing up for reopening the former Selsdon Park Hotel
The Selsdon Park Hotel, once one of the leading country house hotels in Britain, is reopening early in 2023 as the second Birch Hotel, and the new management is staging a recruitment day next month.
They have vacancies for receptionists, kitchen, chefs, landscapers and grounds maintenance, restaurant staff, maintenance and wellness – among others.
The recruitment day will be Wednesday December 7, from 10am to 8pm at the Clocktower by Croydon Town Hall.
The hoteliers say, “If you want to be part of this exciting opportunity to work in a stunning 5-star hotel then book your place to attend by contacting akashia@londontalent.co.uk.”
Will yurt believe it?: could this be what awaits what was once the 15th fairway at old Selsdon Park?
The Birch hotel is to be relaunched as the second property in the company’s lifestyle brand, building on the success of the original Birch site, which was named Hotel of the Year 2020 by The Sunday Times.
Inside Croydon reported on the acquisition of the Selsdon Park Hotel earlier this year. The hotel has been closed for refurbishment since December 2021, the 200-acre parkland golf course closed permanently.
Birch’s first hotel, in Hertfordshire, offers art workshops, yoga and spin classes, a bakery, pottery lessons and foraging walks. “There are even yurts: more Hoxton-in-the-Sticks than Selsdon Man”, as we reported in February.
Read more: Selsdon Park’s golfing paradise looks lost under new owners
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“5-star”! I’m trust they have first contacted any staff laid off by the previous management, and will re-recruit on higher “5-star” wages – right?
How would they contact them?
I do hope that they put a sensible business model in place. Will enough well-heeled North London and Wimbledon/ Putney/ Richmonders be willing to come round to the Surrey side of Croydon to holiday in a yurt, or am I being “yuppyist” or what ever the term is nowadays for ex yuppies with kids and dogs?
This does look a wonderful, unique, mellow, attractive, rambling, huge, historic building set in magnificent grounds. It seems to have so much potential, but to have confidence in devising the right mix for this location, and this building, in today’s economic times, needs a management team with vision, lots of cash and nerves of steel !
It is such a shame that a few years ago , 3 or more big new golf clubs were built just a few miles out into Surrey, which must have had an effect of taking actual or potential clientele away from Selsdon Park and many other local, long established courses in Croydon — all of which preserve magnificent landscapes.
Without golf, how can such landscapes be kept entire, and free of the spectre of building or fragmentation ?
To have the original house, set in its parkland, is something of a miracle, as so many big houses across the UK have either disappeared (burnt down or demolished after becoming derelict) , leaving a park with its trees and memories, but no house at its centre (like Oaks Park in Sutton borough) — or the opposite– a big house sits in a much reduced park, most of which has been built on for suburban. London has many. I am not sure which is more sad.
If truth be told, there are very many very boring and even ugly country houses around the country which are gradually declining, underused and under-financed.
This Selsdon Park house is NOT one of those! And, what a beautiful landscape!
The mellow brickwork and white stonework, all those windows, and the harmony but variation of the architecture of a house that grew over centuries into a venerable pile of a home, mark it out as very special. To me, the whole look and ‘feel’ of the place is cheerful and positive.
Surely, it must have potential as a film set ? Specialising in 1920s-30’s films.
Amy Johnson flew from nearby Croydon airport to Australia (and back). .A film of Amy’s life would be a superb film, Why not have her taking off on a practice run, from the lawn outside Selsdon Park Hotel ? …. OK, it never happened, but artistic licence and all that……
Perhaps a motor racing circuit for vintage Hispano Suiza and similar cars?
A (tethered) hot air balloon festival ? With champagne at 100ft above ground, served in the wicker basket gondola, with bubbly made in the Hotel’s own vineyard planted on the former 18th hole? 1920’s weekends–come and learn how to do the Charleston, and play billliards?
All the best to the new owners and managment–I hope that Inside Croydon charts their progress and success.
p.s.
I hope that they open the open air pool to the paying public.