The Painswick

The Painswick is a late 18th-century Palladian house at the top of Painswick, the hillside wool village above the Stroud valleys. Built at the height of the cloth trade as Prospect House, it became the village vicarage in 1897, when the architect Detmar Blow was brought in, and gained a library and chapel in the decade that followed. The Calcot Collection bought it in 2015 and reopened it in the spring of 2016 after a full renovation.

Inside, the house keeps its proportions and wears them lightly: panelled lounges with log fires, a restaurant in what was once the Sunday school, and a garden terrace and lawn that look straight out across the valley. Sauce, the restaurant, cooks seasonal menus from Cotswold produce, with a wine list the house is plainly proud of.

The way to use it for an occasion is to take the whole house. A 24 or 48-hour takeover closes the doors to the public and hands over the restaurant, the lounges, the bar, the terrace, 17 bedrooms and the three-bedroom cottage next door, sleeping 42. The restaurant seats 60 and takes 80 for the evening, and the smaller Clutterbucks room seats 14 for a private dinner. The house asks for music to finish at 11.30pm, in consideration of the neighbours, so this is a long dinner and an early dance rather than a late party.