Broome Park

Few English golf courses can claim to play across grounds as historically loaded as these. Broome Park's estate dates to the 17th century, and the grand baroque mansion at its heart — once home to Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, the famous Field Marshal whose face stared from a million recruiting posters — now serves as the hotel and clubhouse at the centre of the property. The course wraps around and through this heritage landscape in Kent's Elham Valley, where mature woodland, open parkland, and the gentle folds of the North Downs combine to give each round a distinctly unhurried, country-house feel.

Kent sits in the driest corner of England, which keeps Broome Park more playable through the seasons than courses further north or west. The surrounding countryside is hop-garden and orchard country, and that agricultural softness carries into the layout itself.

For visiting golfers, the draw here is as much the setting as the golf — the chance to stay, eat, and play within an estate that carries genuine weight of history, rather than a manufactured resort atmosphere.