Pylewell Park

Pylewell House stands at the end of a long drive on the New Forest coast east of Lymington, in parkland that runs down to a private beach with the Solent and the Isle of Wight beyond. The Worsley family had built a house on the site by 1677, William Ingham Whitaker bought the estate in 1879 and remade it, and the Roper-Curzon family, his descendants, still live on the estate today. Joseph Weld, who owned Pylewell from 1801, was one of the founders of the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes.

Every private event here is taken on an exclusive-use basis, and the house can be hired with or without its bedrooms. The ground floor gives a drawing room with Solent views for dinner for 50 or drinks for 150, a dining room for 35 and a stone-flagged entrance hall with an open fire for 26 at a single table. Thirteen bedrooms sleep 20, with room for six more in the penthouse, so a party can take the house for the weekend and end with a nightcap on the roof terrace.

Larger parties move to the Pavilion, built where the house's ballroom stood until the wings came down in 1951. It seats 200 for dinner and holds 250 for a reception, with floor-to-ceiling windows, a terrace and a dance floor under one roof. From April to September a sail canopy on the balustrade lawn takes 80 for dinner in the open air. The Pavilion is yours until midnight, and the estate team takes sound readings through the evening.