Ellenborough Park: A Timeless Take On Countryside Living

26.01.2024 - 16:52 / forbes.com / queen Elizabeth

There are creaking floorboards, twisty corridors, lined with oil paintings, and oak-panelled rooms that seem to hold the secrets of the past within their joints: Ellenborough Park may now be recognised as one of the UK’s leading country house hotels (in fact, it is the only five-star country house hotel in Gloucestershire) but this wasn’t always its raison d’etre.

Enter the flagstone-floor lobby and, as a guest, it’s as though you’ve stepped over an invisible threshold into the unfolding of the stories of its past.

Found at the foot of Cleeve Hill, Ellenborough Park sits at the gateway to the Cotswolds. It’s the perfect spot to explore what is one of the UK’s loveliest regions: where you can immerse yourself in the surrounding countryside on long rambles or have a joyful day at the Cheltenham races. Its position overlooks undulating Cotswolds hills to Cheltenham Racecourse beyond: look closely and you might catch a glimpse of the flashing of hooves and shaking of the manes of thundering thoroughbreds being put through their paces.

When you first arrive, the hotel’s honey-hued stone façade is like something out of the pages of a Daphne du Maurier novel: turrets and towers, stained glass windows and Gothic arches belie its heritage. At twilight, the building is illuminated by amber lights as if someone has lit a hundred candles outside. You could be back in the 15^th century, to a time when Thomas Goodman, a tenant farmer built what was then called Southam House. Indeed, his coat of arms can still be seen on the front door (now repositioned in a newer porch); while some of the designs within the stained glass windows in The Restaurant were commissioned by Goodman to commemorate those in power at the time: Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York.

Over the years, Southam House changed hands on multiple occasions and its chequered history reads like a mirror reflection of England’s own path through time: with famous battles, political intrigue and royal heritage reflected in the various parts of the architecture. On the same front door, for instance, you can still see musket bullet holes, dating from the English Civil War (Oliver Cromwell is thought to have been one of those who shot at it). In the library, and in the Great Hall, are coats of arms marking various prestigious owners. Its Ellenborough Park name stuck in 1833, when the mansion was sold to the 1^st Earl of Ellenborough, the future Governor General of India, and it has remained the same ever since, despite forays as a convalescent home for soldiers and a school for girls. It was not until 1973 that it became a hotel under the De La Bere name.

At the heart of the hotel lies the Tudor Great Hall—a spectacular space now reimagined as a cosy lounge,