Cowdray Estate | Midhurst, West Sussex

It’s actually hard to put into words how perfect Cowdray Park is – set in the rolling hills of Midhurst, West Sussex in 110 acres of private gardens, grounds and parkland – the beautiful estate is absolutely spectacular.

Famously the home of English polo, Cowdray House is also available for private hire for special occasions like weddings and birthdays, and you can hire the entire house plus the North wing and the numerous cottages that are scattered around the estate.

Buck Hall is the huge reception room which makes this a perfect venue for events like weddings – you can just see the gallery landings in the image above – most of the bedrooms in the main house are off the landings that look down on Buck Hall.

There are numerous smaller reception rooms perfect for drinks receptions and all around the ground floor are huge Jo Malone candles with beautiful arrangements of fragrant winter flowers so the entire place smelt absolutely incredible.

The bedrooms and bathrooms were all designed by Lady Cowdray and feature antique furniture, statement wallpapers, textured herringbone natural fibre carpets and plenty of brushed linen. The perfect English country interior design.

With 15 bedrooms, the main house can sleep 30 but there is additional space in the North wing and the cottages so altogether you can sleep up to 70 guests.

Bathrooms are huge with plenty of marble, walk in showers, roll top baths and Liz Earle products.

The house is so perfectly equipped to deal with parties of all sizes, it really was incredible to think of all the people working so hard behind the scenes and who made everything look effortless.

There’s so much to do at Cowdray – games of snooker, a swim in the indoor pool (or outdoor pool) and even ten pin bowling in the North wing after breakfast on Sunday morning. Below are some of the amazing people that make all of this possible.

Catering is prepared by the housekeepers at Cowdray who source the majority of their ingredients from the estate’s farm shop. Everything was delicious, freshly baked bread, eggs and meat from the estate and the coffee – sourced from Monmouth Coffee – was particularly good. You can visit the farm shop café which serves food daily and it really is worth a visit.

All the food is prepared daily from scratch, and it all looks delicious. Be prepared to be very full when you leave because the cakes and biscuits are insanely good.

Cowdray is also the home of English polo and spectators can purchase tickets on the gate throughout the season. Take a look here for more information – it really is a fantastic day out.

The picture above is the HB Polo & Thai Polo team competing at The Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup for the British Polo Championships at Cowdray Park Polo Club. Ranked alongside the Argentine and USA Open tournaments, the four weeks of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Gold Cup for the British Open showcase the world’s finest players and includes up to 40 thrilling matches.

If golf is more your cup of tea, the sport has been played on the scenic course at Cowdray for well over a century. Its combination of sandy soil with the latest irrigation and sprinkler systems, means superb conditions can be maintained even in wet weather making it a true all year round course.

There’s also fly-fishing, shooting, spa and wellbeing facilities – it is absolutely the most perfect venue – in fact the only problem is you won’t want to leave.

For more information about the Cowdray Estate click here.