England’s outstanding tourism businesses have been honoured at the Enjoy England Excellence Awards 2005 sponsored by The Caravan Club. The English-themed awards ceremony was held at the British Museum in London (19th April 2005) and was hosted by well-known broadcaster and presenter Sandi Toksvig.

Timed to coincide with St George’s Day, the Awards celebrate the people behind the cream of English tourism – B&B owners, hoteliers, self-catering properties, visitor attractions, business venues, tourism websites, Tourist Information Centres and other tourism businesses that are the very best in England.

The national award for Outstanding Contribution to Tourism was won by the Duchess of Northumberland for her vision, determination and creativity spearheading the Alnwick Garden Project.

The 40 acre garden is attracting over 400,000 visitors a year and is expected to bring in to the North East £150 million pounds over 10 years. A special feature is the ‘Lord of the Rings’ style treehouse which is one of the world’s largest ever built and perches on 16 trees.

In total, there are 30 winners over the 10 different categories with 11 Gold, 16 Silver and three Bronze winners.

The full list of Gold winners are:

The Bed and Breakfast of the Year winner is Holly Lodge, in Norfolk, with three en-suite guest cottages, which are themed - ‘Country Cottage’ with a New England feel, ‘Colonial Cottage’ with a Far Eastern feel and the ‘Claret Cottage’ with Medieval charm and a four-poster bed.    www.hollylodgeguesthouse.co.uk / 01328 878 465

The Business Tourism Award is a new category for 2005 and was won by the Cotswold Conference Centre – a training and meeting venue set in 300 acres of stunning parkland just outside Broadway village in Worcestershire. www.cotswoldconferencecentre.com / 0845 230 8580

This year’s Caravan Holiday Park of the Year winner is Shardaroba Caravan Park.  The Park is set in six acres of Nottinghamshire countryside. The site is family-owned and has well-spaced pitches, offering guests the opportunity to explore, or simply relax.  Opposite the site is a recently developed country park featuring footpaths, bridle paths and a family picnic area where hundreds of trees have been planted.   www.shardaroba.co.uk / 01623 551 838

The Hotel of the Year winner, The Samling, is set in its own 67 acre estate in Windermere, surrounded by woodland, fields and landscaped gardens.  Rooms are stylish, relaxing and individual, and all but two have stunning views over Lake Windermere. Food in the restaurant, which has just been awarded its first Michelin Star, is made from the finest, freshest local ingredients www.thesamling.com / 015394  31922

For the first time, there are joint ‘Gold’ winners for the Large Visitor Attraction of the Year category (more than 100,000 visitors per year). The ‘Gold’ awards were presented to both Beamish North of England Open Air Museum, in Country Durham - that vividly recreates life in the North of England in the early 1800s and 1900s - and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, which is home to HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the Mary Rose.   Beamish - www.beamish.org.uk / 0191 370 4000 and Portsmouth - www.historicdockyard.co.uk / 02392 861 533

The Outstanding Customer Service Award was won by Ann Stamper, a gallery assistant at the National Maritime Museum in London.   Ann is 71 years old and has worked at the National Maritime Museum for three and a half years, having previously been a Headmistress. In that time, she has attended no less than 16 training courses and regularly goes beyond the call of her day-to-day duties as a gallery assistant. She enthrals children with her lively talks on Lord Nelson and his battles. National Maritime Museum - www.nmm.ac.uk / 020 8858 4422

The winner of the Self-Catering Holiday of the Year is The Olde Rectory in Worcestershire.  The Rectory’s 16th Century barn and coach houses have been thoughtfully converted to provide four stylish and individual properties.  Owners Gilly and Cliff offer superb levels of customer care and go beyond the usual self-catering offerings by providing special packages, such as pampering weekends for hen parties, shopping services and catering for dinner parties.  www.olde-rectory.co.uk / 01886 822 000

The Small Visitor Attraction of the Year winner is Holkham Hall – a privately owned grand 18th Century house situated in the centre of a 25,000 acre agricultural estate and home of the Earl and Countess of Leicester. The estate provides funds and resources to help maintain the house and ensure that the social fabric of rural life remains intact. www.holkham.co.uk / 01328 710 227

This year’s Tourist Information of the Year winner is Chesterfield Tourist Information Centre (TIC). Chesterfield opened in a new, fully accessible building next to the town’s famous landmark – the Crooked Spire Church – in November 2002. The TIC has 158,000 users and is made (and heated) with natural materials. The TIC offers many services from booking tickets for trains and coaches to local and national events, selling gifts, books, maps and short breaks. www.visitchesterfield.info / 01246 345 777/9

The Tourism Website of the Year winner is www.lythhillhouse.com - the website of luxury B&B Lyth Hill House in Shrewsbury. The website is a great example of how a website can support a small B&B business. Excellent touches such as downloadable PDF layouts of the rooms are available, enabling viewers to decide at their leisure whether a room is suitable for their needs. The site is clear, easy to navigate and, with an estimated 75% of bookings coming from the website, it is the main business driver for Lyth Hill House.

The winners were chosen after rigorous assessment by a panel of tourism industry judges, from nearly 100 winners put forward by England’s nine regional tourism partners and the Cumbria Tourist Board.

To download a full list of Gold, Silver & Bronze winners by category, click here.