Tel: 01285 740337
Email: info@biburycourt.com
The Hotel
Dining
Reservations
Special Offers
More About Us
BOOK ON-LINE
PRESS AND REVIEWS OF BIBURY COURT HOTEL
Jilly Cooper | Top 50 Hotel | Time Out
EXCERPT FROM Time Out
Weekend Breaks from London
The 17th Century builders of lovely Bibury Court knew a prime piece of real estate when they saw one. They set their mansion next to Bibury's Saxon church and backed it up to the River Coln, which today marks the southern boundary of the hotel's six acre grounds. A highlight here is taking tea on the patio or in the conservatory and looking across to the river. Indoors a genteel feeling pervades, emanating from the kindly, professional staff.
JILLY COOPER’S PERFECT WEEKEND
I know exactly how I’d spend my perfect weekend because most normal weekends are such bloody hard work. Leo, my husband, wakes around six, so I tend to drag myself up then and try to write for at least five hours on both days – I’ve just started a new novel about a race horse. Sadly, neither my lovely housekeeper, Ann, nor my wonderful PA, Pam, are on at weekends, so I have to do most things myself, which with people often coming to stay is pretty chaotic. I’m very undomesticated and a lousy cook. And of course, I have to walk my darling new dog, Feather, several times a day. He’s a rescue greyhound and utterly enchanting.
We haven’t had a weekend away for years because of all the animals at home. Now there is just Feather and five cats. So for a perfect weekend, we’d all go and stay at Bibury Court, near Cheltenham – Leo, Feather and me. It’s a lovely romantic hotel and Bibury is the most perfect village. William Morris called it the most beautiful village in England. Normally one just pounds through in a car and I love the chance to explore it properly, with Feather.
Bibury Court is a heavenly Jacobean house, built by Thomas Sackville. You can’t see it from the main road and it has gorgeous gardens with the River Coln running around the whole estate like a shining ring. It is pure Tennyson: you could float along the river like the Lady of Shalott: ‘Williows whiten, aspens quiver/Little breezes dusk and shiver/through the wave that runs for ever/by the island in the river/flowing down to Camelot’. And you could eat shallots while you were floating.
Leo and I would stay in the Sackville Suite because it has a big four-poster and the most enormous sofa that Feather could stretch out on. Feather loves sofas: he arranges all the cushions and throws a few on the floor. He’s very sybaritic. The owners wouldn’t mind at all, they are deeply dog-friendly and have labs of their own. I took Feather there for a Christening recently. He loves other dogs and just played around the labs all afternoon. He came to me through my friend, Angela Yardley, who runs Greyhound Rescue West of England. Feather was found wandering around Ireland totally emaciated. He’d been trapped in a muzzle he’d been wearing for weeks. Greyhounds make the most wonderful pets, they are so easy and have the gentlest of natures.
At lunchtime, Leo would probably drink at the bar with some friends and Feather and I would explore the gardens, which have lovely ancient trees and lots of new ones we could go and examine. Feather would like that. Bibury Court has been in the same family for some years now. It is now run by the eldest son, Robert Johnston. He’s terribly young and brave; he’s given up his City life to take it on.
I’d sleep all afternoon and in the evening we’d have a fabulous dinner party. I’d fly the Royal National Scottish Orchestra down from Glasgow – I went on tour with them once and they are wonderful. They could play the last movement of Mahler’s Resurrection symphony with the brass blaring out over the gardens and Wagner’s Good Friday Music. Leo would like Mozart, so we’d have the Magic Flute and Cosi.
As for the guests, I’d love to ask the Duchess of Cornwall, because she’s such fun – and her husband, if he were free. Then those heavenly men from Little Britain, David Walliams and Matt Lucas, they’re simply brilliant and Ricky Gervaise and Annabel Goldsmith, whom I adore and Harry Enfield. And some National Hunt trainers, like Richard Phillips, Charlie Mann and Nigel Twiston-Davies, because racing gossip is so gloriously naughty. It’d be a strange mix, but I’m sure they’d get on famously.
The food at Bibury Court is so utterly delicious: it’ll be hell trying to choose a menu. Bibury Trout for starters, perhaps, and then Roast Rump of Bibury Lamb? Then I start thinking about those poor lambs, skipping about in the fields. Perhaps we’d have the warm salad of Roast Rabbit, but then if everyone did, it would mean so many rabbits having to die. I’m not vegetarian, but I do feel very schizo about food. On second thoughts, perhaps, I’ll have Caramelised Monkfish. But I’m afraid Feather is going to have the Bibury Lamb.
Leo will choose the wine but we must start with champagne – buckets of it I’ll try and stay sober – for a bit – but I’d take a notebook to dinner so I can jot down all my guests’ bon mots, before I get totally hammered.
The next day, we’ll invite the children and our darling grandchildren, Jago, who’s 2 ½ and Lysander, who is nearly 6 months, over for lunch. I’d like to invite Emile Hesky, my favourite footballer. He has such a kind open face like our late Labrador. He plays for Wigan now – Emile – that is, so I’ve now become a Wigan supporter. Perhaps he and Jago could kick a ball around before lunch. Jago would adore that. So would Feather. Isn’t it funny how Italian men talk about their mistresses and English women always end up talking about their dogs? Whatever the subject.
BIBURY COURT IS A TOP 50 HOTEL AS VOTED FOR BY THE INDEPENDeNT newspaper
Who needs the hassle - and environmental guilt -of of foreign holidays when the greatest escapes can be found in our own backyard? Go on says Rhianon Batton from the Independent, give your passport the year off.