Benjamin Disraeli stayed here, and William Shakespeare visited too. Since the Roman times, when a villa sat on the banks of Warwickshire’s River Stour, the various incarnations of Ettington Park’s houses have welcomed the great and the good. Today, however, a luxurious suite at Ettington Park Hotel takes in a panorama of precise topiary in the geometric formal gardens, long lawns sloping down through towering trees to the weaving River Stour and the carefully curated remains of a Norman church. It is a breath-taking view, rekindling bygone days of lordly living.
Undoubtedly, the current Ettington Park house is the finest, the most decadent version yet, gloriously and reverently restored by Hand Picked Hotels. In 1858, Evelyn Shirley took a look at his weary, dilapidated old family pile and shook his head. The building required “considerable improvement”. Shirley’s choice of architect, Charles Pritchard, had been heavily influenced by Augustus Pugin. Known as “God’s architect”, Pugin looked back to grand, airy, high-ceilinged Gothic architecture as a response to the cramped squalor of the Industrial Revolution.

To arrive in the reception is to walk into an elaborate pillared confection of the ultimate wedding cake, surrounded by dazzling, intricately carved alabaster white columns. Over five years of construction, Pritchard and Shirley championed supreme craftsmanship over the soulless mass production of mid-Victorian Britain. The result was an extravagant neo-gothic masterpiece of polychromatic effects. Six different shades of stone were brought from all points of the compass with a gentle yellow Cotswold stone, from Gloucestershire, dominating. It is Pritchard’s fairy-tale fantasy of balustraded balconies, square towers and round turrets, all fronted by a carriage porch and inner vaulted conservatory. Perhaps with understatement, architectural guru Nikolaus Pevsner described Ettington Park Hotel as “the most important and impressive High Victorian house in the county.” Did he mean the country?

The selection of private dining rooms make Ettington Park Hotel an ideal destination for celebrations and reunions. The 19th century former Shirley family chapel, now a stained-glass windowed dining room, caters for up to 14. For larger celebrations, the Long Gallery, stretching the entire length of the building on the second floor, seats 96 guests.
In the Oak Room Restaurant, where heraldic shields on the wood panels celebrate the Shirley family’s matrimonial alliances over the centuries, a Modern British menu is served. Awarded two AA rosettes, sourcing is largely local – Cotswold gin cured trout, traditional English steaks, roast shoulder of pork and Kerry Hill lamb recall England’s finest culinary traditions. But there is a nod to the Mediterranean with citrus cured monkfish served with a white bean and octopus cassoulet as well as a spicy touch of chorizo. Although the Shirley family moved to Ireland in 1912, their descendants enjoying returning to see that their heritage is in caring hands.

Ettington Park Hotel takes the lordly traditions of Victorian living and tweaks them with contemporary comforts: indulgence time in the indoor heated pool, al fresco afternoon tea on the terrace and picnic hampers on the banks of the River Stour. It is an irresistible meeting of past and present.