Venues in The Countryside
Private seats, estates and country houses outside London, from the Cotswolds and Windsor to Bath and the South Downs, let whole with beds for the night.
West Sussex
The Kennels, Goodwood
Members' Club
Up to 100 guests
James Wyatt's 1787 hound kennels, now Goodwood's members' clubhouse, hired without membership: a Penguin-lined Music Room, a sporting Library and a canopied Putting Green for 100.
The Countryside
Moor Hall
Modern British Restaurant
Up to 80 guests
Mark Birchall's three-Michelin-star restaurant with rooms in a Grade II listed Lancashire house, with a 12-seat private dining room and the whole estate available exclusively.
The Countryside
Ynyshir
Creative Restaurant
Up to 100 guests
Gareth Ward's two-Michelin-star restaurant with rooms in mid Wales, hired whole for 16 at dinner or up to 100 in the grounds.
Windsor & Ascot
The Waterside Inn
French Restaurant
Up to 75 guests
Alain Roux's three-star restaurant on the Thames at Bray, taken whole for up to 75 guests, with River Cottage and its walled garden for 12.
The Countryside
L'Enclume
British Restaurant
Up to 6 guests
Simon Rogan's three-Michelin-star restaurant in a former Cartmel blacksmith, with Aulis Cartmel, its six-seat chef's table, available exclusively.
The Countryside
Midsummer House
Modern British Restaurant
Up to 45 guests
Daniel Clifford's two-Michelin-star restaurant in a Victorian villa on Midsummer Common, available whole or through its first-floor private dining room.
Bath & Somerset
Osip
Modern British Restaurant
Up to 38 guests
Merlin Labron-Johnson's Michelin-starred farm-to-table restaurant with rooms, in a former country inn outside Bruton, with a private dining room and whole-restaurant hire.
The Countryside
The Hand & Flowers
British Restaurant
Tom Kerridge's two-Michelin-star pub in Marlow, with a ten-seat private dining counter, The Shed, along West Street.
Windsor & Ascot
The Fat Duck
Creative Restaurant
Up to 40 guests
Heston Blumenthal's three-Michelin-star restaurant in a 16th-century Bray building, available for private hire for up to 40 guests.
Bath & Somerset
Da Costa
Italian Restaurant & Bar
Up to 200 guests
Artfarm's northern Italian restaurant at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, with Oddur Roth's artwork bar and the Oudolf Field, all bookable for a private event.
West Sussex
Bailiffscourt Hotel & Spa
Hotel
Up to 100 guests
A 1920s Guinness family house built to look medieval, taken whole on the Sussex coast: 39 bedrooms, a 13th-century chapel and 30 acres of parkland to the sea.
/ About The Countryside ▾
The Countryside gathers the houses this directory holds outside London, filed under six destinations: The Cotswolds, Windsor & Ascot, Hampshire & the New Forest, Surrey, Bath & Somerset and West Sussex, with a house beyond all six listed here on its own. Many are family houses, still lived in and let whole rather than hotels selling a function suite, so the terms differ from the first conversation: exclusive use of the building and its grounds, a stated number of bedrooms, and a schedule agreed around the household rather than around a banqueting diary. A good number of them take perhaps a dozen events a year.
The hire product is the whole place. A country house gives a party ground that London cannot: a drive to arrive up, a hall to receive in, a dining room, a drawing room for the shift after dinner, a lawn if the numbers need a marquee, and beds for the guests who should not drive home. Capacity is usually set by the largest room or by the grounds rather than by a ballroom figure, so the seated maximum is often lower than a hotel’s while the day itself is much longer. Catering is generally brought in, which means the menu is written rather than chosen from a pack, and it means a longer lead time.
Distance is the thing to plan around. An hour and a half from central London is the practical limit for an evening that returns the same night; past it, the occasion becomes a Friday-to-Sunday and the invitation has to say so. Coaches from a single London pick-up solve most of the problem and are worth costing early, as are the local licensing hours, which are shorter than Westminster’s and enforced strictly on sound. What the country buys in return is privacy of a kind no London address can sell: no neighbours, no passing trade, and a guest list that stays together from the first drink to breakfast.