Ramside Hall and its two golf courses are one of the best kept secrets in the UK – and now they want that to change.
With two championship-level courses, a classy hotel and The Pin, an entertainment centre precious few could match, golfers and families alike have real reason to head to the North East to enjoy a project 10 years and millions of pounds in the making.
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Ramside Hall has gorgeous, championship quality greens
The Pin is a true gamechanger for a golf stay and play
SunSport spent two days at the Resort and Spa to check out the supreme offering the spot has put together.
The resort sits just a few miles south of well-known neighbours Sunderland and Newcastle, but this Durham-based hotel appears straight off the A1, a connective thread through the North East.
The class and regency is immediately striking, just from the grounds, structures and the sheer worth of motors in the car park (they actually have a Bentley service on site). But in The Pin, Ramside Hall has taken a major step towards becoming a must-visit attraction.
It has an excellent spa and swimming pool – opened by Kevin Keegan as it goes – with separate adult offerings, two pristinely kept golf courses and a variety of food options.
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There is a nice buffet style breakfast each morning at Charcoa – where you can also have dinner – and there is also The Rib Room for all things meat (highly recommend) and Fusion if you’re looking for more of an Asian flavour.
The rooms feel luxurious, the bathrooms and beds especially feel like a treat (they also have really good TV offerings in the room which is an underrated detail in most places – was able to watch the final day of the PGA Championship). It was a fridge shy of being the perfect room.
But, a lot of places have those things. That’s the standard for a top of the range stay.
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The Pin is a great spot for the family; my seven and 10 year olds loved it
The sports bar was always rammed with a younger crowd and a good atmosphere
The rooms are very good quality, but their premium treehouses look like a real slice of luxury
What this place has that nowhere else does is The Pin, which only opened in October 2025.
This facility is perhaps the best sports bar I’ve seen in the UK. Big screens adorn walls everywhere you look with sports memorabilia to complement them. They also have a really effective, tonally accurate menu with wings, burgers, pizzas, hot dogs and more. If you want steaks or foreign dishes, you will rightly find them in their gourmet restaurants.
The main bar, which has two stories, is flanked by a bowling alley on one side and a two-tier, 43-bay driving range with TopTracer technology on the other.
There is also interactive dart boards and shuffleboards for fun, but the cherry on top of this entertainment extravaganza is the VIP service at the driving range.
For £49 a head, you have unlimited golf balls to use with the TopTracer, your own beer tap, a private lounge area with 80 inch TV, your choice of hot food off the menu and a dedicated host for the two hours.
My kids – two girls, 7 and 10 – adored this place. But what I really noticed was the amount of young adults that packed the place out. A real sweet spot between the 300-plus members of the golf club and attracting young people to the resort.
Special shoutout to Colin who greets you at the golf club, our server Louis in The Pin and Sebastian in The Rib Room (which does a mean steak). The warm North-East welcomes could be found all over the resort.
Prince Bishop’s Course
This par 72 beauty starts off with an immediate dogleg right par four that tempts the slicer in you from the first tee.
The condition of the course is up there with pretty much any championship course I’ve played in the country. The greens rolled true and the fairways didn’t look like they had a hair out of place.
Water comes into play around the middle holes where all of six, seven and eight make you think twice on your approach.
Every course should have a drivable par four and hole six would be it if not for the water protecting the green. The 16th is the next best at 263 yards while the slightly longer hitters have a chance with the 284-yard eleventh.
Chart Hills is not short on beautiful views and interesting holes
The 18th hole runs adjacent to the resort’s spa
The 18th hole is a fine finish: a 302-yard par four flanked by opulent treehouses on the left and the resort’s spa on the right.
They have two par threes that go over water and both are very short, fun holes. It’s an entertaining course to play; there’s precious few bog standard up and down par fours. The only thing it perhaps lacks is a truly signature hole. But, you’re guaranteed a good time.
Cathedral Course
This course is not quite finished yet with the 17th and 18th holes being worked on as I played it. It is also missing it’s seventh hole as renovation work continues, but the potential here is obvious.
The first two holes play the other side of the treehouses you finish on with the Prince Bishop’s Course. It’s another fun dogleg right par four to get you going, but once you finish that, you make your way across the road to a different stretch of land.
This has gorgeous views of the north-east countryside that the other course, largely surrounded by trees, does not. It’s much more open and really the perfect complement to its sister course; it retains the same course standard and care with a different option and style.
The Cathedral had quite a few holes that were memorable. Three downhill par threes – holes four, six and 12 – are fun and challenging in equal measure while the steep, uphill par four 13th is so, so easy to get wrong with a big drop off to the left and trees harassing you to the right.
The uphill par four 13th hole gives great views of the north-east countryside before the green
There’s a little bit of water giving you issues on holes 10 and 16 and the temporary par three where the par five seventh hole would be, but nothing too strenuous.
Just how good this course is will hang on what the three holes they’re working on really turn out like. But it’s a championship feel with delightful views and different enough from the Prince Bishop’s course to make an overnight trip worthwhile.
If this course was down towards London, everyone would know about it. I have half a mind to tell the owners to open up a chain! It was worth the near five-hour trip for me from the south-east, but if it was within 15 miles of me, I’d go all the time.
Even just to watch the football or practice. The Pin is right on the pulse of what young sports fans and golfers want, but, rather importantly, it’s just one of several reasons to visit this place.
I’ve stayed at dozens of golf courses both domestic and abroad – almost NONE of them have the well-rounded package Ramside Hall does.