What a wonderful place for a country wedding. What a perfect place to land your helicopter and stay. What a location for some shopping, culture, and history. Weston Manor Hotel is an hour from London, literally a mile off the M40 motorway, and close to the mammoth Blenheim Palace, Britain’s grandest palace and home to the Duke of Marlborough and the birthplace of Winston Churchill. It’s also near to the delights of Oxford University, with its beautiful medieval colleges, and to the attractions of Bicester Village famous for bargain shopping from its designer outlets.
The hotel is steeped in history. It’s mentioned in the Doomsday Book, tracing its roots back 900 years and beginning its life as a house belonging to Wigod of Wallingford, a cupbearer to Edward the Confessor. Many original features across the centuries grace both the exterior and the interior.
As I arrived by day down the hotel’s sublime avenue of lime trees I felt instantly that I had come to somewhere special. Such was the imposing façade of this 15th-century village manor house. Beneath a fluttering Union Jack (the British sovereign flag), the Tudor architecture possessed a pale-color limestone and jutted out according to its octagonal tower and gables, castellations, and porticos.
Inside the hotel lent a relaxed, informal atmosphere. The décor, instigated by its recent owners from Dubai, puts a modern twist on the hotel’s traditional design. The Great Hall, which acts as the lobby, has a wood-paneled ceiling and contemporary furnishing in front of a giant stone fireplace that roars and crackles in the winter. Particularly impressive for those interested in British domestic history is the nearby wood-panelled Baronial Hall. It keeps all its original, intricate linenfold carved paneling and it also comprises a Minstrel’s Gallery.
The 33 rooms are divided between the Manor House and the Coach House. They have rates starting from $160 a night going from Classic Double, Deluxe Rooms, Junior Suite, Chapel Suite, and a Versace-styled Blenheim Suite in ascending order of grandeur.
Every room and suite is unique. My suite had exposed beams beneath spacious surroundings and signature floral wallpaper. The sash windows had cushioned window seats. All in a meeting between old and new and all with views out across the grounds. I loved my large comfy four-poster bed and all the indulgence of the linens and bathrobes and the marble-styled bathroom floor.
Outdoors I enjoyed Afternoon Tea on the lawn. It was first
introduced in England by Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, in 1840. She invariably would become hungry at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. As dinner in her household wasn’t served until 8 o’clock, it left a long time for something to be snacked upon between lunch and dinner.
Another highlight is surely the gorgeous and serene Lavender Restaurant. A former drawing room it has panelling dating back to 1608. It’s spacious, beautifully proportioned, harmonious, and bathed in light. It has elegant soft duck egg blue coloring. There’s an electric grand piano in the corner and a large Murano chandelier above. There’s additional dining in the Tudor room. Here the décor suggests a veritable zoo with giraffe-themed wallpaper and leopard and zebra-printed seats.
The majority of the food comes from nearby farms and the hotel’s website declares: “Here we are trying to keep the food in line with what would have been served at a traditional Manor house hundreds of years ago”. I chose well from an impressive menu. The food isn’t over-priced and the presentation is supreme. My Cornish cod loin came with peas à la Françoise, smoked potato foam, caviar, and crispy mussels. To follow my Yorkshire Parkin comprised a delicious malted milk ice cream and apple purée.
I loved roaming the 12 acres of the hotel’s gardens as do peacocks, red-breasted robins, and large birds of prey. Two extensive and beautifully mown lawns with long flower borders create a fabulously expansive environment. Throughout, past small courtyards, there are lavender-lined pathways and clipped yew bushes. There’s a secret garden where weddings are conducted if the service isn’t performed within the Baronial Hall. Amongst the sunken beds is a small pond and before them is a pit fire. Parasols and loungers look out over one lawn on which croquet is played by guests while another lawn has marked out the landing spot for guests’ helicopters. Country walks consist of rambling through the dreamy village of Weston-on-the-Green and out past paddocks of horses, nibbling at string bags of straw, to the wild-flowered meadows and expansive wheatfields beyond. Quintessentially English countryside.
