Tucked away in the West Yorkshire countryside sits Holdsworth House Hotel, a Jacobean manor with a genuinely impressive guest list stretching back decades. The Beatles have walked through those doors. So has Billy Connolly, REM and more recently, Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie while filming Wuthering Heights nearby. So when a booking landed in our diary with this place listed as the venue, we’re not going to pretend the whole Hog Roast Halifax team wasn’t a little starstruck heading over.
We worked closely with Claire, the venue’s wedding and events manager, who made us feel welcome from the second we pulled up. After a quick tour highlighting some of the building’s best bits, she pointed us towards the perfect spot to get our equipment and serving station set up. From there, it was straight into business, firing up the grill and getting a whole hog roasting away for the 60 guests due later that day.
The pig itself came from a local, free-range farm, arriving pink and plump before we’d even lit the flame. A few hours of slow, patient cooking later, and it had turned into exactly what you’re picturing – crackling that shattered properly, meat underneath that pulled apart at the lightest touch and a classic combo of sage and onion stuffing and sweet, tangy applesauce on the side for good measure.
Honestly, the whole thing felt right at home in a setting like that. There’s a bit of theatre to a proper hog roast, and against the backdrop of a manor with that much history behind it, guests couldn’t get enough of both the smell drifting across the grounds and the spectacle of it all coming together. Hog Roast Halifax served it up with mixed salad, coleslaw, rolls, wraps and a good selection of condiments for anyone wanting to build their own plate exactly how they liked. On the flip side, grilled vegetable kebabs with optional halloumi and tzatziki, plus BBQ-pulled jackfruit rolls, meant nobody skipping meat felt like an afterthought either.
Suffice to say, Hog Roast Halifax loved every second of this booking. Between the slightly surreal setting and watching guests genuinely enjoy every bite, it’s the kind of event we’ll be reminiscing about for many years to come.