Group Visits
We are taking bookings for 2024, with the best availability for tours being in April, May and September.
If you would like to visit the house and gardens, the optimal number for a tour is 30 people. If you are not able to put together a group of that size, we are holding two public tours which can be booked through our partners at Historic Houses. The link to these tours is available here: https://www.tickettailor.com/
For more information about dates, and to request a brochure, and our availability, please contact Hugo Mander at the Estate Office.
email: hello@owlpen.com Telephone: 01453-860261
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Background Information
In 1974, Sir Nicholas and Lady Mander moved to Owlpen to begin the painstaking process of restoring a Tudor manor house in order to house their growing family. Since then, they have raised five children and eleven grandchildren, not to mention the menagerie of dogs, cats, farm animals and strays who have all made the Owlpen valley their home. As this is a lived-in manor house, the Mander family offer a special tour that combines art, architecture, family, history, natural beauty, garden design, film location tours and, of course, ghost stories…
The house has medieval origins, but is mainly Tudor, dating from 1450 to 1616, with careful Cotswold Arts and Crafts repairs of 1926, when the house was saved from ruin after over 80 years of dereliction.
Today the interiors contain a series of unique painted textiles and Mander family portraits and collections, as well as a representative collection of Cotswold Arts and Crafts furniture and fittings.
Highlights:
- Magnificent Tudor Great Hall of 1523, Jacobean Solar/Parlour wing dated 1616.
- Elegant early Georgian Little Parlour and door-case remodelled in 1719.
- The Great Chamber contains unique painted cloth wall-hangings with scenes from the life of Joseph and his brothers, dated about 1700.
- The manor house became a Sleeping Beauty in Victorian times, uninhabited and dwarfed behind enormous yews. It was discovered by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and finally rescued by the outstanding Cotswold Arts and Crafts architect Norman Jewson in 1926.
- Owlpen’s terraced gardens are developed around an early formal garden on a manorial scale. A charming hillside garden is set on seven hanging terraces of the 16th/17th centuries, with magnificent yew topiary, old roses and box parterres. The garden was reordered in the 1720s and is today a historic survival of great interest and rarity.
The “Old English”-style garden was much admired by many of the foremost garden designers of the early 20th century, including Gertrude Jekyll, Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe and Vita Sackville-West.
There is a circular walk around the early Georgian mill pond and lake, fed by seven springs, believed to represent the medieval stew ponds. The walled kitchen garden is a delightful feature whose produce continues to feed household and restaurant.
Guests are invited to join a guided tour conducted, where possible, by Sir Nicholas and Lady Mander. They have lived in the house since 1974, and Nicholas has published books and papers on Cotswold houses, the Arts and Crafts, the history of Owlpen, and a history of the 17th century painted cloths which still hang in the manor house.
Lady Mander prepares all of the food for our tour groups, and meals are served in the 15th century Cyder Barn just 100 metres from the manor house. It is a fully license restaurant, and intimate venue for exclusive country house weddings and private parties. She offers everything from a cup of tea on arrival to a home-cooked 3-course meal, for up to 50 guests. Get in touch to find out more about her mouth-watering menus. And if you manage to catch her, she’ll tell you one of her many ghost stories, compiled from experiences of the many hundreds of guests who have stayed here since the 1970’s, and tales which have been handed down to her from the distant past.
For more information including a brochure, and our availability, please contact Hugo Mander at the Estate Office.
email: hello@owlpen.com Telephone: 01453 860261