The swankiest party pads to hire in the UK - The Times
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Anyone planning a milestone birthday or a major knees-up knows picking the right venue is key. Luckily, we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to luxurious party pads across the UK. From fairytale castles to hiring out your very own island, these are the most fabulous spots to host a swanky soirée.
Owned by the glamorous Boglione family, Petersham Nurseries has long been a favourite with A-listers, counting Sienna Miller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Scarlett Johansson among its many fans. Now Gael and Francesco Boglione have thrown open the doors to Petersham House Gardens, the grounds of their private family home, for the very first time. Complete with access to Petersham Pool — which formed the backdrop to one of the most memorable scenes in the most recent Bridget Jones film, Mad About the Boy — the gardens can hold up to 500 people and are only available to hire a handful of times each year, making this one of the UK’s most exclusive party venues.
The on-site team takes care of everything when it comes to setting up, sourcing aesthetically pleasing marquees strewn with strings of fairy lights and filling each one with swathes of British grown seasonal flowers, chosen by their team of expert florists. Dinner is served on hand-finished linens and the menu is crafted by Petersham’s head chef, featuring dishes made with seasonal ingredients and vegetables, herbs and edible flowers straight from the kitchen garden.
Prices vary — contact Petersham Nurseries events team for bespoke party packages; petershamnurseries.com
Spread across 6,000 acres in the Suffolk countryside and featuring three estates — Sibton Park, Chapel Barn and Blyth — Wilderness can accommodate parties of any size and style. For the ultimate house parties there are five properties to choose from, from the 19th-century Sibton Manor, which sleeps 27 and features a modern-day party pad in the basement, to Chapel Barn, which has 17 en suite bedrooms and its own private pool and spa. Of course, if you really want to pull out all the stops you could just hire all three estates and host a party on the grandest of scales for up to 254 guests.
Owned by Jon Hunt, the billionaire property developer and founder of Foxtons, the Reserve can be transformed into pretty much any theme you can think of. They’ve hosted a Saltburn-inspired masquerade ball at Sibton Manor, with guests in black tie and masks and baths filled with bottles of champagne on ice. There have been woodland raves on the grounds, with roaming stilt walkers and fire performers. The Walled Garden, meanwhile, was once turned into a Ronnie Scott’s-style jazz club for a 35th wedding anniversary, with waiting staff dressed in traditional braces, serving cocktails from vintage shakers. The estate is fully equipped to welcome top artists too, with Simply Red arriving by helicopter for one performance and James Blunt singing at the same event.
Pricing available on request; wildernessreserve.com
Ever since opening in 2019, the Newt has been a big hit with the global party set, having welcomed everyone from Kate Moss to Beyoncé during festival season (it’s just a 25-minute drive from Glastonbury). This summer, the five-star hotel opened a brand-new exclusive-use estate. Located in Yarlington Village, a mile away from the hotel, Yarlington Lodge spans 12 acres of formal gardens and historic woodland and dates back to the Tudor era, when the land was gifted by Henry VIII to two of his wives, first Catherine Howard and then Katherine Parr.
Restored by the Newt’s co-owner, the South African designer Karen Roos, the house has been designed with lavish celebrations in mind. There’s an indoor-outdoor pool, private chefs and butlers on hand for decadent dinners in the courtyard or dining room, and a speakeasy-style bar in the basement. There’s even a private cinema room, the ideal spot for nursing a hangover the morning after. The Lodge itself has eight bedrooms, all named after 19th–century literary figures, from Becky Sharp to Fanny Price. There are four further bedrooms in the Coach House (the former stables and carriage store) and another four in the cosy gardener’s cottage, sleeping 32 in total.
Pricing starts from £10,500 per night for exclusive use across the 16 bedrooms at the Lodge, Coach House and Cottage in the Wall; thenewtinsomerset.com
The only habitable castle on the shores of Loch Ness, Aldourie Castle is owned by Scotland’s richest man, the Danish fashion tycoon Anders Holch Povlsen. It’s a suitably luxurious place to host a knees-up, as the basketball superstar LeBron James discovered when he stayed there with his former Cleveland Cavaliers team-mates in June. There is an in-house chef and a well-stocked wine cellar. Sumptuous formal banquets are held in the castle’s great hall and dining room, with dishes made using local produce handpicked the same day from the garden.
Anyone booking out the castle for exclusive use gets the run of the full 500-acre estate, with its wildflower meadows, ancient woodland and lakeside lawns. There’s an orangery overlooking the estate’s walled gardens, while the boathouse, with its terrace overlooking Loch Ness, is the ideal spot for sundowners. Meanwhile, a dedicated dance hall in the Steadings — the castle’s collection of curated event spaces — provides ample space for ceilidh dancing. The castle sleeps up to 24 and there are also seven self-catering cottages scattered across the estate if you need a few extra bedrooms. With activities ranging from boating on the loch to fireside whisky tastings and Highland pipers at sunset, you might find it hard to get them to leave.
Pricing starts from £33,000 per night; wildland.scot
It’s hardly surprising Elmore Court has a reputation for hosting raucous parties. The estate has been the Guise family seat for over 750 years and is currently presided over by Anselm Guise, who was dubbed “the hedonistic heir” after he ignored his father’s plans to follow him into the world of banking. Instead he became a DJ, running psychedelic trance parties and founding Glade Festival, previously one of the world’s leading electronic music festivals. Designated a party pad by Sir Berkeley Guise in 1794, the house has long been used for entertaining. The Main Hall can accommodate up to 200 guests and was just made for big events, with its heraldic stained-glass mullioned windows letting in a stream of multicoloured light, while the Dining Room is ideal for more intimate dinners of up to 50 people. The party can go all night in the Drawing Room, which features a 24-hour licensed bar, and the house sleeps up to 40 guests, with room for 19 more in the six treehouses dotted around the estate.
When it comes to full-on raves, guests book out the Gillyflower, the estate’s purpose-built event space. Described as a “ballroom, party room and place of wild abandon” it features state-of-the-art sound and light systems and has capacity for over 200 people. The venue was sustainably built using rammed earth and timber taken directly from the estate and also happens to be completely soundproofed, so you can make as much noise as you like. Parties at Elmore have ranged from flamboyant dances to festival-style outdoor feasts, featuring everything from mirror ball installations and theatre performances to elaborate laser displays.
Pricing starts from £5,000 for day hire of the Court and Gillyflower, with accommodation in the main house an extra £3,200 per night; elmore.estate
Set within 3,100 hectares of rolling landscape at the foot of the Pentland Hills and just 30 minutes from Edinburgh, Penicuik House pride itself on hosting “price-is-no-object” private parties. As well as the 18th-century house itself, which sleeps up to 32 people, there’s the option for a full estate takeover, which includes the High Pond Reserve — a waterside venue located in an ancient woodland for up to 250 guests — as well as the estate’s collection of self-catered cottages, which sleep a further 16 guests.
Recent blowout bashes have taken place in the newly opened glass orangery, housed in the estate’s sunken garden and the first venue of its kind in Scotland. A striking contemporary space of glass, greenery and light, lit by chandeliers and candlelight come nightfall, it can accommodate up to 150 guests for dinner and dancing or 200 for dinner alone. For a dramatic after-party location there are the ruins of Old Penicuik House, the grand Palladian mansion that was devastated by a fire in 1899. A recent open-air party here featured a laser show, DJ and live cocktail stations. The estate can put on everything from whisky tastings and guided foraging adventures to wild swimming and luxurious spa treatments.
Pricing starts from £9,750 per night, with a minimum two-night stay; penicuikestate.com
Hedsor has a long and illustrious history of hosting swanky do’s. More than 250 years ago, the house was owned by William Lord Boston, who was famous for his glamorous private gatherings. His son entertained King George III (to whom he served as Lord of the Bedchamber) and Queen Charlotte. Today, their portraits gaze down on Hedsor’s more modern revellers, of which there are plenty.
The estate has been run by the Shephard family for the last four generations — the current owner Hamish’s granny Florence threw legendary parties here in the 1930s. The Georgian house is set in 100 acres of Buckinghamshire parkland and anyone booking a private hire option will get the whole house and gardens to themselves, with capacity for up to 150 seated or 250 for a standing party. With 13 bedrooms, the house also sleeps 26 people. Anything goes at Hedsor, which has seen guests transform the property into a Narnia-esque wonderland, with the party space accessed via a wardrobe of fur coats, and hot-air balloon rides take off from the lawn. When Mark Ronson held a party here some years ago, guests including Lily Allen, Nick Grimshaw and Alan Carr were treated to a fully immersive experience, with one room transformed into an ultraviolet jelly room featuring glowing dessert.
Pricing starts from £6,450 for house hire; hedsor.com
With its colourful Barlow & Barlow interiors and eccentric vibe, this Georgian manor on the edge of the Cotswolds is the fashion set’s choice for a private party — everyone from the Shrimps founder Hannah Weiland to the Damson Madder founder Emma Hill has booked the house. Kin can host everything from an intimate dinner for 20 in the drawing room to cocktails, dinner and dancing for up to 200 in Kilvert Hall, their party space. Found in a separate wing of the house, it has its own dedicated bar, dancefloor and hidden stage area.
Set in ten acres of gardens and woodland with an outdoor pool, parties here make the most of the outdoors. Some book for open-fire feasts and woodland dining, with guests glamping. Others come for pool parties twinned with yoga on the lawn and sound baths in the greenery-filled garden house. Kin can sleep 36 guests across 18 bedrooms in the main house and lodge. There’s even a dedicated dressing room, kitted out with hairdryers, tongs and a hair-washing station for pre-party prep.
Pricing starts from £11,250 per night; kinhouse.co.uk
If an estate or castle isn’t going to cut it, you could look into hiring an entire island. That’s the offering at Osea, which has been described as “Essex’s answer to Necker”. Owned by the music producer Nigel Frieda — brother of the celebrity hairstylist John Frieda — this hedonistic hideaway on the Blackwater Estuary has seen Cara Delevingne, Kate Moss and Rihanna let their hair down over the years. Totally secluded and only accessible by land for four hours out of every 12 due to the tides, this place is hard to beat if you’re looking to plan a private bash.
An island takeover here means guests have access to all 28 properties on site, which range from cute clapboard cottages on the beach to an Agatha Christie-esque manor house. There are 87 bedrooms to choose from, sleeping 119 in total, with the option to add glamping on the grounds to take it up to 300. Hiring the whole island also gives you access to three quirky event spaces, each with 24-hour music and drink licences. The Shack is a laid-back wooden-beamed spot on the beach that can accommodate up to 150 guests standing or 50 for formal dining. The lofty Power House, built during the First World War to house the island’s electricity generating station, can host 250 standing guests in industrial-chic surroundings. Meanwhile, the island’s largest venue, the Bomb Factory, is a converted torpedo store, able to accommodate 750 standing or 350 seated for parties on a seriously grand scale.
Pricing starts from £40,000 per night; oseaisland.co.uk
With more than 700 years of history, Brinsop Court has welcomed its fair share of notable figures over the decades. The venue has played host to William Wordsworth and used to host Stephen Hawking’s annual scientific workshops. These days the 14th-century manor house has a less cerebral vibe, with the exclusive-use estate offering plenty of options across its 800 acres of Herefordshire countryside. Entirely encircled by a swan-filled moat, the medieval grade I listed house is bursting with character, from ornate ceilings and grand fireplaces to original beams and mullioned windows.
Featuring 18 bedrooms, the house sleeps up to 33 guests, with two cottages in the grounds sleeping a further four. From April to October there’s also the option to add seasonal glamping, providing accommodation for 24 more. For grand dinners there’s the banqueting hall, which seats 120 and features a soaring vaulted ceiling and timber beams carbon-dated to 1180. The more intimate Elizabethan library, with its plasterwork ceiling dating back to the mid-1400s, seats up to 94. For larger knees-ups, the knot barn — accessed via the moat bridge — seats 180 for dinner and 250 for dancing. There’s an in-house chef to take care of the catering, which can include wild meadow and woodland safari lunches, as well as in-house pamper treatments to take the edge off the next morning.
Pricing starts from £8,000 for two nights; brinsopcourt.com
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