My country-house parties have always suffered from one slight problem – I
don’t have a country house.
I do have a cottage in Dorset, but several factors make it less than ideal. I
will gloss over the fitful heating, the single shower, the mountains of
books that could bury the unwary guest. Size is the problem.
In my house, four guests are a crowd, six are mayhem and eight require a
marquee in the garden.
I once had 16 to dinner. The dining table, extended with desks, tea chests and
a laundry basket, seemed to run from the front door to the back. My chief
memory of the evening was of women in inappropriate skirts climbing over the
table to get to their seats. I wondered what kind of thoughtless moron had
done the seating plan, before remembering the thoughtless moron was me.
It was high time, I felt, for the grown-up version of the country-house party,
one that takes place in a proper country house, somewhere with long drawing
rooms for predinner drinks, with four-poster beds and croquet lawns and a
backstairs for creeping adulterers. I was surprised to learn that there were
no end of large manor houses willing, for a fee, to allow any sort of
ragamuffins the run of the place. I settled on Bradley House in Wiltshire –
it slept 24 people in gracious ensuite style without anyone having to resort
to the sofa – and began calling friends.
When we turned up, we thought we had died and gone to Gosford Park. A fine
Georgian manor set in rolling parkland, Bradley House comes equipped with
all the paraphernalia of privilege – grand entrance halls, sweeping
staircases, baronial fireplaces, windows so tall you could ride a horse
through them, and bathtubs in which you could do lengths. Bradley House is
the kind of place that makes you wonder how you have survived all these
years without 25,000 acres, a peerage and a family motto.
The drawing room is larger than most London flats. A fire crackles in the
library, where deep sofas await guests inclined to curl up with a good book,
or one another. The music room is a children’s domain of games and pianos
and DVDs. Beneath Flemish tapestries and silver candelabra, the dining room
table is a polished runway laid for 24. Across the hall, the kitchen is the
size of a small barn. It contains the two essentials for any self-respecting
country-house kitchen – a sofa and an Aga, as well as three acres of counter
space. Beyond lies a reassuring hinterland of butler’s pantries, laundry
rooms, gun rooms, cloakrooms and backstairs.
The family seat of the Dukes of Somerset, Bradley House was built in 1680.
Originally, it rivalled Longleat, its neighbour, but some family crisis in
the early 19th century necessitated pulling down two wings, reducing the
house from palatial to merely very large. The family are the Seymours, who
were granted their title by Henry VIII when he took a fancy to the young
Jane Seymour. He invited her to become lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn.
Eleven days after Anne’s execution, Henry married Jane. Their marital bed,
with its dense oak carvings, is upstairs in the Bow Bedroom.
Family portraits abound. The gloomiest line the central staircase. There is
Sir John Seymour, Jane’s father, a lugubrious fellow in charge of an
intimidating beard. Clearly a man with more facial hair than sense, it was
he who offered the hand of his daughter to the uxoricidal king. Then again,
perhaps it was the old wheeze of sacrificing the girls so the boys could get
on. Opposite is the painting of the male heir that Jane produced – the young
Edward VI. He is watched over by Jane’s brothers – Edward, who became Lord
Protector to the boy king, and Thomas, who became High Admiral.
Cars began to purr up the curving gravel drive, and the guests made their
entrances like characters in an Agatha Christie. I doled out bedrooms with
giddy abandon. The bachelor barrister was assigned the Garden Room at the
end of the west wing, where he could conduct any dangerous liaisons with a
degree of privacy. The bisexual novelist was given the bed in which Henry
VIII bedded Jane Seymour.
The historian was offered the Italian bedroom with its fine orientalist
prints, on the grounds that she had grown up in Istanbul – sadly, they
turned out to be prints of Cairo. The journalist with the frisky young wife
was given the Park Bedroom, with the chandelier poised above the four-poster
bed. The glamorous divorcee was installed within corridor-creeping distance
of the bachelor barrister. Children were dispatched to nursery bedrooms on
the second floor, where they embarked upon a game of hide-and-seek that ran
longer than The Sopranos.
We spent three blissful days in Bradley’s elegant bubble. The house managed
the neat trick of being grand without being in the least formal. I realised
that this was how a manor house would be if I owned one myself: full of
books and comfy sofas and log fires. There were piano duets in the music
room, chess games half-finished in the library, a great gaggle of muddy
wellies inside the back door and a kitchen that was the warm heart of the
house.
Every morning while the others slept, I went about the house opening the heavy
curtains and the tall wooden shutters, a ritual that took a good quarter of
an hour. As light flooded into the rooms, the view was revealed piece by
piece – the curving drive encircling the fountain, the flat croquet lawn,
the mature trees of a Wiltshire parkland, the decorative sheep on the far
side of the ha-ha and the distant pastures rising to the heights of
Brimstone Hill. Every evening, we had drinks in the Drawing Room in front of
a roaring fire before we repaired to boisterous candlelit meals at the long
dining table.
Nobody had to climb over the table to get to their seat. Nobody had to sleep
on the sofa. Nobody could remember such a wonderful house or such a fine
house party. And nobody wanted to leave.
Stanley Stewart stayed at Bradley House as a guest of the Country Castle
Company
10 big houses to rent in Britain
All prices are for self-catering options, though some properties do offer
catering
BRADLEY HOUSE, Wiltshire (sleeps 24) We loved it, and so did all our
guests. Bradley House is the perfect country house. It lies in the prettiest
part of Wiltshire, just over 20 miles from Bath, and is the kind of place
where you feel immediately at home – warm, comfortable, inviting, lived-in.
Part of the reason it feels so much like a family home is that the Duke and
his family still live here for some weeks every year. From £6,500 for a
two-night weekend.
01225 436230, www.thecountrycastlecompany.com
BUCKLAND HOUSE, Devon (sleeps 27)
Bring your ball gowns. Set in 250 acres of private woodland in mid-Devon,
Buckland gives new meaning to big. I feel there must be guests lost here
from previous house parties, still wandering the corridors. There is a
snooker room with a full-size table, a children’s playroom with a
dressing-up box, an outdoor pool and a lake with a rowing boat. But the
highlight of this house has got to be the galleried ballroom, complete with
grand piano. From £3,182 per week, plus heating and hot water.
01409 281645, www.bucklandhouse.co.uk
THE BEACH HOUSE, Cornwall (sleeps 14)
This seaside villa, perched directly above Porthpean Beach, has the atmosphere
of a Hamptons beach house – bleached wood, painted furniture and chalky
coloured walls. The ground-floor rooms all open out onto the garden and the
wide 60ft deck. A boardwalk leads down to a private entrance onto the beach.
There is an attic sitting room, a great hideaway for children or teenagers,
while adults may end up spending most of their time in the 30ft kitchen with
its three sofas and bracing views of the sea. From £1,950 per week.
01242 633637, www.thewowhousecompany.com
TONE DALE HOUSE, Somerset (sleeps 21)
A palladian villa set in four acres of landscaped gardens centred on a
millstream, Tone Dale is near Wellington, on the edge of the Blackdown
Hills. Light streams into this house through beautifully proportioned
windows. Try to bag the Old Laundry bedroom, which has four windows.
Decorated with great style, Tone Dale is an interior-designer’s dream.
Children can be happily dispatched to the Long Room, with innumerable games
including table tennis and a pool table, while 10 extra guests could be
accommodated in the five stable bedrooms. From £5,600 for six nights in the
main house; stable accommodation extra.
01823 662673, www.thebighouseco.com
BERKELEY HOUSE, Gloucestershire (sleeps 16)
Tucked away behind a Georgian facade in Tetbury is something completely
different – a modern, stylish interior without a whiff of chintz or baronial
flummery. Owned and designed by model-turned-photographer Lena Proudlock,
Berkeley House is a country pad for people more at home in Hoxton than in
Highgrove. Like the house, the town garden is spacious and stylish. The
Orangery is the perfect spot for a candlelit dinner party or for the
premiere of your latest home video. There is also a decadent bedroom tucked
away in the garden, in case you have any rampant newlyweds in your party.
Three nights from £3,500.
01225 436230, www.thecountrycastlecompany.com
ASSYNT HOUSE, Ross-shire, Scotland (sleeps 16) As befits a Scottish
estate, woodwork is one of the great features of Assynt House. Both the
drawing room and the dining room are lined with the gorgeous light-coloured
wood panelling that gives the house so much of its warmth. Skiing at
Aviemore is only 30 minutes away. The famous Royal Dornoch golf course is
close by, as is the Moray Firth. Grouse, pheasant and clay-pigeon shooting
can all be arranged, as can salmon and sea-trout fishing. From £2,900 per
week.
01845 597614, www.thebigdomain.com
RECTORY PARK, Gloucestershire (sleeps 13)
A Regency rectory, close to Stroud and Cheltenham and a short swan dive from
Slimbridge wildfowl reserve. Plenty to keep kids of different ages busy
here, with a games room, a doll’s house, a home cinema and Sky television,
while outside there is croquet, pétanque and a small football
pitch. A medieval moat may keep them from wandering while the grown-ups
lounge in the patio hot tub. There is an outdoor dining table for those rare
warm summer evenings. From £2,075 per week.
0845 208 1066, www.dunsterliving.co.uk
GODDARDS, Surrey (sleeps 12)
Built by Edwin Lutyens at the end of the 19th century, this property, in
traditional Surrey style, is considered one of his finest early houses.
Approached by green sunken lanes, near Abinger Common, it was originally
intended as a holiday home for “ladies of modest means”, who were reported
“to invariably weep when they leave it”. Presumably, the ladies were keen
bowlers: a full-size skittle alley is one of the more unusual features here.
The garden was designed by Gertrude Jekyll. From £2,225 per week, or £1,545
for a three-day weekend.
01628 825925, www.landmarktrust.org.uk
VOEWOOD, Norfolk (sleeps 32)
A genuine Arts and Crafts masterpiece, built in 1905. For anyone tired of
chintz and baronial fireplaces, this bohemian property is just the thing. It
feels very Bloomsbury Set – you keep waiting for Gwen John to turn up. Along
with a fabulous modern-art collection, the house boasts hand-painted murals
in the bedrooms, a piano once owned by Lew Grade and a 1960s-inspired
chill-out room, as well as a gorgeous mosaic room. There is even a tepee in
the listed gardens. The Great Hall can accommodate a party of 100, should
you wish to invite a few more mates round for drinks. The north Norfolk
coast is a short drive away. From £6,400 for two nights.
01225 436230, www.thecountrycastlecompany.co.uk
TREVOR HALL, Denbighshire, Wales (sleeps 14)
Near Llangollen in North Wales, Trevor Hall is only an hour’s drive from
Manchester and barely 45 minutes from Liverpool. An early Georgian brick
house, a rarity in Wales, it is a great place for children, with an
eccentric mix of styles from medieval banqueting to Regency pomp to funky
modern artefacts. The largest drawing room doubles as a cinema, with a 6ft x
5ft screen, there is a games room with a pool table, and a rare concession
to smokers, who may retire for cigars to the library. From £3,100 for six
nights.
01242 633637, www.thewowhousecompany.com
And four abroad...
VERGER DE L’ETOILE FILANTE, Marrakesh, Morocco (sleeps 15)
A fabulous, architect-designed property with a stunning pool, in the
Palmeraie, just outside Marrakesh. Like all good Moroccan properties, it is
a labyrinth of passages, nooks, terraces, balconies and cushioned hideaways.
Two maids come with the house, as does a Moroccan chef. The house manager
can arrange excursions into the souk in Marrakesh, to Essaouira on the
Atlantic coast and into the desert for a night in a Bedouin tent. From
£5,000 per week, with breakfasts and one grand dinner. Smaller parties can
be accommodated at a reduced price.
020 7401 1045, www.cvtravel.co.uk
VILLA SARACENO, Vicenza, Italy (sleeps 16)
Your own palladian villa, designed by the man himself, Andrea Palladio. Built
in 1550 as a country estate for a nobleman from Vicenza, the villa offers
grand rooms with beamed ceilings and wide flagstoned floors, and elegant
loggia overlooking the walled grounds. When the Landmark Trust began to
restore the building, after years of neglect, one of the more exciting
discoveries was the fresco friezes that run round the cornices. Just over an
hour from Venice, with Verona, Padua and Vicenza even closer, this makes a
wonderful base for exploring the Veneto. From £1,535 per week.
01628 825925, www.landmarktrust.org.uk
CHATEAU LA DURANTIE, Dordogne, France (sleeps 20)
A classic 19th-century chateau, set in 12 acres of gardens and orchards, this
property effortlessly combines period and contemporary. Furnished with
antiques, but equipped with flatscreen TVs and DVD players, the chateau is
as chic as a Parisian boutique. There is a pool, a badminton court and
bicycles to explore the Périgord, one of the loveliest parts of the
Dordogne. Baby-sitters, maids, masseurs and drivers all await your call, at
an extra charge. One of the finest riding schools in France is 10 minutes
away. From £4,420 per week.
020 7401 1044, www.cvtravel.co.uk
EL MOLINO DEL CONDE, Andalusia, Spain (sleeps 19)
This traditional white Andalusian mill is arranged around a central courtyard
of trellised vines and a fountain. The rooms, with their high-beamed
ceilings, open directly onto the courtyard or onto outside terraces.
Surrounded by olive, pomegranate, almond and walnut orchards, the house has
five terraces for dining, lounging and napping, as well as a swimming pool
next to the millstream. Granada, Seville, Cordoba and Ronda are all within
day-tripping distance. From £2,300 per week.
00 34 656 325639, www.elmolinospain.com
The Beach House Cornwall is not with the Wow House agency any more but has its own website and booking on
www.thebeachhouse-cornwall.co.uk
melanie Eclare, Totnes, UK