Ockenden Manor

Ockenden Manor can be taken whole. On an exclusive-use booking the party is the only company in the house, with all 27 bedrooms, the restaurant, the bar, the lounges and the private grounds to itself, and the hotel can be styled from top to bottom for the occasion. The spa and swimming pools sit outside the arrangement. For a wedding on the same terms, the grounds take a marquee for a larger guest list.

The private room is the Burrell Suite, the oak-panelled dining room John Burrell added after he bought the manor in 1658 with a fortune made in the Sussex iron trade. Stained-glass armorial windows, a carved stone fireplace and family portraits set the tone for dinners of up to 40 or a reception of 50. The Burrell Lounge beside it seats ten, and the restaurant, a light room with long views over Cuckfield Park, seats 96 when the evening needs the larger space. Head Chef Stephen Crane cooks for all of them.

The house is Elizabethan, sandstone and timber-framed, on Ockenden Lane at the edge of Cuckfield village. The Burrell family held it into the twentieth century, and the same family has run it as a hotel for close to forty years. It is a member of Pride of Britain Hotels, and Gatwick is 12 miles away.