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Weston Park
At Home at Weston Park - country houses from the Cotswolds to the Welsh Borders
7
days
from
£4,080
Book today with a deposit from
£612
9th - 15th July 2027
Tour highlights
- Live as guests at Weston Park for four nights, with the house and its 1,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown park to yourselves.
- Twelve houses from the 12th to the 20th century, from a Mughal fantasy in the Cotswolds to the Arts & Crafts interiors of Madresfield and Wightwick.
- Special arrangements and out-of-hours visits, including the priest’s hole where Charles II hid after the Battle of Worcester.
Between the Cotswolds and the Welsh borders lie some of the most enchanting landscapes in Britain, largely unspoilt thanks to being beyond the reach of metropolitan commuters. Their agriculture remains small in scale, family farms and artisan food producers maintaining earlier field systems with hedges and an abundance of trees.
The houses visited illustrate the evolution of taste over many centuries. Hellens perfectly demonstrates the adaptation of a small monastery into one of Britain’s most atmospheric houses, deeply rural yet playing its part in national affairs. Moseley Old Hall, an Elizabethan manor house, sheltered Charles II after his defeat at Worcester. Classicism shaped Hanbury, Shugborough and Attingham, while Sezincote is a Regency fantasy in the Mughal style and Longner an early essay in Tudor Gothic by John Nash. Eastnor combines Norman and Gothic Revival elements while Madresfield’s many reconstructions have produced a house resembling a moated Elizabethan mansion but, like Wightwick, it is celebrated for its Arts & Crafts interiors.
Important parks surround some of the houses: Weston Park has one of the few remaining ‘Capability’ Brown pleasure grounds, Attingham and Longner are by Repton and the magnificent group of mostly Greek-inspired monuments in the park at Shugborough is a landmark in 18th-century architecture.
A very special feature of this tour is that participants stay for four of the six nights in one of these houses. Weston is in essence a late 17th-century mansion filled with fine paintings – Holbein, Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs – and furniture and other arts. Formerly the property of the Earls of Bradford, it belongs to a private charitable trust. It is not a hotel, but caters for high-end special events. Our group has exclusive access, and while there this great country house is your home. You are free to wander through the house and grounds at leisure.
Itinerary
The coach leaves Gloucester Railway Station at 12.00 noon. Transformed from a monastery into a fortress in 1292 by Mortimer, Earl of March, Hellens has been lived in ever since by his descendants. Edward the Black Prince dined in the stone-flagged hall and the Tudor, Jacobean and Stuart additions contain paintings and heirlooms from the Civil War, fine 17th-century woodwork and Cordoba leather wall hangings. First of two nights in Broadway.
Sezincote was built c. 1805 for Sir Charles Cockerell, who made his fortune with the East India Company. It was designed in the Mughal style by his brother Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with a copper onion dome, peacock-tail windows and a curving orangery. The novelist Evelyn Waugh was a frequent guest at Madresfield, where the oldest part is the 12th-century Great Hall. Rebuilt in the 16th, 19th and 20th centuries, the house is famous for its Arts & Crafts chapel and library.
Spectacularly situated above a lake, early-19th-century Eastnor is a splendid example of the Norman and Gothic revival, with a drawing room by Pugin. The sumptuous and beautifully restored interiors are hung with paintings by Van Dyck, Reynolds, Romney and Watts. Described as ‘every Englishman’s idea of a substantial squire’s red brick home of the age of Wren’, Hanbury was built c. 1700 and decorated with wall- and ceiling-paintings by Sir James Thornhill. The garden and orangery were designed by George London. First of four nights at Weston Park.
Today is dedicated to Weston Park. The predominantly 17th-century house has an excellent picture collection, outstanding furniture, including choice pieces by Chippendale. An in-depth tour of the interiors is followed by a tour of the extensive grounds: ‘Capability’ Brown park, with head gardener.
Set in parkland designed by Humphry Repton, Attingham has magnificent Regency interiors and one of the first picture galleries to be built in a country house. It is filled with the collection of Italian furniture, paintings and silver acquired by the diplomatist 3rd Lord Berwick. Longner, in a Repton landscape above the River Severn, is a Tudor Gothic house of red sandstone. John Nash built it in 1803–07 for the Burtons, who have lived on the estate since the Middle Ages and still do.
Shugborough has all the elements of a substantial country estate: a magnificent Georgian house with a fine collection of paintings, silver and ceramics; Grade I-listed parkland peppered with classical monuments; a working model farm; and a lively family history. After his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, Charles II hid at Moseley in a priest’s hole. The house was the home of the Catholic Whitgreave family, and the hole remains, as does the bed in which he slept. The Elizabethan timber-framed house was encased in brick in the 19th century. The garden has a 17th-century-style knot garden.
One of the finest examples of the Victorian penchant for an ‘Old English’ amalgam of stone, brick, half-timbering and tile-hanging, but also distinguished by its collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and William Morris furnishings. The tour ends at Shrewsbury Railway Station by 3.20pm and at Wolverhampton Railway Station by 4.30pm.
Expert speaker
Anthony Lambert
Historian, journalist and travel writer. He has worked with and for the National Trust in various capacities for almost 30 years. His books include Victorian & Edwardian Country House Life and he writes regular profiles of country houses for the Historic Houses Association magazine. He has written numerous travel and guide books, and contributes to a wide range of newspapers and magazines.
Practicalities
Two sharing: £4,080. Single occupancy: £5,480.
Accommodation as described below; breakfasts, three lunches and four dinners with wine or beer, water, soft drinks, coffee; private coach; all admissions and donations; all tips; the services of the lecturer and tour manager.
The Lygon Arms, Broadway: a 16th-century coaching inn; some parts date back to the 14th century. Situated in the high street of Broadway.
Weston Park, Weston-under-Lizard: set in 1,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown parkland. A country house where one may stay, rather than a hotel, offering the experience of being a guest while the family is away. Single occupancy rooms are doubles for sole use.
Unavoidably, there is quite a lot of walking on this tour and it would not be suitable for anyone who has difficulties with everyday walking and stair-climbing. Coaches can rarely park near the houses, many of the parks and gardens are extensive and the houses visited don’t have lifts.
Between 10 and 22 participants.
Dates & prices
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2027
Date
Speaker
Price
Date:
9th - 15th July 2027
Speaker:
Anthony Lambert
Price:
from £4,080
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