Sezincote
A weathered copper dome and an Indian water garden, dropped into a Gloucestershire valley near Moreton-in-Marsh.
A weathered copper dome and an Indian water garden, dropped into a Gloucestershire valley near Moreton-in-Marsh.
Sezincote is the place we send guests to when they think they have seen everything the Cotswolds can offer. It sits near the village of Bourton-on-the-Hill, a mile or so west of Moreton-in-Marsh, and it is often described as the only authentically Mughal palace in northern Europe. Built around 1805 in what its makers called the Indian style, it blends Hindu and Muslim elements into something that ought to look absurd in an English valley and instead looks utterly at home. The onion dome has aged to a soft green, the curved orangery sweeps away from the house to enclose a small paradise garden, and the whole thing sits on a Grade I listed, still privately owned family estate of around three and a half thousand acres.
The story behind it is as good as the building. It was designed by the architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell for his brother, Sir Charles Cockerell, who had made his fortune with the East India Company and wanted a house that spoke of the world he had lived in. The artist Thomas Daniell, who had travelled and drawn extensively in India, advised on the detailing, while Humphry Repton had a hand in the landscape. When the Prince Regent visited in 1807 he was so taken with it that Sezincote is credited with inspiring the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, which is a fair claim to fame for a house tucked away in the north Cotswolds.
For us the garden is the real joy, and on a warm afternoon it is where we would linger. It runs down a series of spring-fed pools linked by streams and cascades to the Island Pool, threaded with Indian-influenced features you simply do not expect in an English garden.
Sezincote is a private family home, so the house and garden open to visitors only on set days through the year, with the garden generally open more often than the house itself. Because the days and times change with the seasons, we would always check the official site before setting off rather than turn up on spec. It is roughly thirty to thirty-five minutes from Well Cottage through the lanes by way of Chipping Norton, near Moreton-in-Marsh, which makes it an easy half-day out. Allow a good hour or two for the garden, longer if the weather is kind and you want to sit by the water.
Sezincote sits in a corner of the Cotswolds thick with good days out. Batsford Arboretum and the Cotswold Falconry Centre are both a short hop away on the far side of Bourton-on-the-Hill, and Moreton-in-Marsh, with its famous Tuesday market, is only a couple of minutes down the road for lunch or a wander. For more ideas within an easy drive, our guide to things to do in the area runs from great houses and gardens to walks straight from the cottage door.
“You come round the bend, see that green copper dome above the trees, and for a moment you genuinely wonder where in the world you are. There is nothing else like it near us.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.