Rest & be THANKFUL
Pull into the car park at Goldstone Hall – an award-winning hotel and restaurant in north Shropshire – and you are greeted with densely planted rose beds, all warm-orange hues, enclosed in low box hedging. In one bed at the entrance is the charming vermilion Rosa ‘Warm Welcome’, while a mixture of Rosa ‘Whisky Mac’, ‘Hot Chocolate’ and ‘Rumba’ fill the others. In an area by the house is a lovely collection of plants including the bronze-purple-leaved Ligularia dentata ‘Desdemona’, the regal fern Osmunda regalis and echiums. It’s a tantalising hint of what is to come.
The Georgian manor house hotel is run by John Cushing and his wife Sue, along with their daughters Victoria and Katie,. The house was originally bought as a private residence by John’s parents in 1978, but after her husband’s death in the early 1980s, Helen Ward, John’s mother, resolved to turn Goldstone into a business.
