Farleigh House

Farleigh House stands at the heart of the 4,000-acre Farleigh Wallop estate in north Hampshire, down a tree-lined avenue and hidden from the road by woodland and a high garden wall. The Wallop family has held it since John Wallop inherited in 1450, and the family says the house and its land have never been bought or sold in recorded history. Sir Henry Wallop entertained Elizabeth I here and Lord Byron came back as an adult to the house he had visited as a schoolboy. The present flint house is largely the work of the 9th Earl of Portsmouth, who brought in the architect H. S. Goodhart-Rendel in the 1930s, and the interiors have since been redesigned and refurbished.

The house is let whole, for a day, a night or longer, with its own house managers, housekeeping and a private chef who writes menus to order. Its eight reception rooms include the Drawing Room, the Library, the Octagonal Room, the Panelled Room, the Smoking Room, a Film Room and a Billiards Room. The main Dining Room takes a lunch, a dinner or a reception for up to 40. Eleven bedrooms sleep 21.

For a larger party the house has a marquee zone beside it, and its ten acres of gardens can hold up to 350 guests in marquees. The gardens were commissioned from Georgia Langton in 1992, and the grounds run to a rose garden, a glasshouse, a serpentine walk, a boating lake, a heated pool, a tennis court and a cricket pitch with its pavilion. The house says there is space for music and dancing indoors, outdoors and poolside, and guests can arrive by helicopter.