PRESTWOLD HALL
Prestwold Hall’s formal gardens and historic interiors provide an exceptional backdrop for events all year round.
Each room boasts its own individual character and history to make any event truly memorable.
The Entrance Hall
Guests enter into one of the finest rooms inside the house, with its painted ceiling inspired by Raphael’s Vatican grotesques. The grand open fireplace and Italian marbled walls provide a welcoming spot for your drinks reception.
The ceiling design incorporates miniature landscapes showing the house before and after its remodelling between 1842 and 1844. Below the ceiling, encircling the room, are small medallion busts of poets from Chaucer to Scott, positioned in the spandrels. Most are likely inspired by Alberti’s external arcade at the Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini.
The Inner Hall
From the Entrance Hall an arcade opens to a vaulted corridor leading to a top-lit Inner Hall. Today, the Inner Hall is a favoured spot for photography and film.
The Art Deco feel of the Inner Hall is enhanced by the paintings adorning the walls, which were mostly painted between the 1920s and 1930s. The cantilevered stone staircase survives from the 18th century house and was given its bracketed brass balusters by architect William Wilkins (1751-1815) in 1805.
The Dining Room
An array of private dining events are hosted in this magnificent space, from intimate dinners to large banquets and events.
The Dining Room forms part of architect William Burns’ 1842 additions, with its marble chimneypiece remaining from the original Georgian house. A series of Hussey portraits, ranging from the 16th to the 18th century, occupy two of the walls in the Drawing Room.
There was no love lost between the childless Charles William Packe (1792-1867) and his brother George Hussey Packe (1796-1874), who succeeded him, as Charles took away most of the contents. Thankfully, this grave deficiency was in part rectified when George Hussey Packe brought the contents of his London house on Charles Street to Prestwold. This is the source of the Chippendale mirrors in the Dining Room and Drawing Room.
The Library
The Library is used for an array of events from corporate meetings to wedding ceremonies, and in the evening transforms into a private night club.
With clever use of constructional steel, William Burn was able to connect the Library and Dining Room, creating a superior entertaining space.
The windows rise from floor level and open onto the garden, enhancing the notion that Prestwold Hall was designed in the style of an Italian classical villa. The doors and bookcases in the Library were made for George Hussey Packe (1846-1908) by Gillows of Lancaster and London in 1875.
The House Bar
In recent years, the Packe family Dining Room has become a spacious bar area, used frequently for hosting a wide array of celebrations. Added by Wilkins in 1805, it was incorporated into the extensive remodelling of Prestwold Hall in 1842.
The room is overlooked by a portrait of Sir Christopher Packe, Lord Mayor of London, and the first member of the Packe family to reside at Prestwold Hall, after acquiring it in 1649. There also hang two dramatic full-length portraits of Sir Edward Hussey Packe, KBE (1878-1946) and the Hon. Lady Mary Sydney Packe (née Colebrooke, 1890- 1973) by the painter Glyn Philpot RA (1844-1937).
Painted in 1911, the portrait of Lady Packe was described by art historian Robin Gibson OBE as an “amazing feat of virtuosity.” Its elongated elegance and introspective characterisation are totally without the fashion-plate vulgarity of much Edwardian portraiture.
The Orangery
The Orangery fills the recessed central bay at the front of the house. Behind the glass and elegant Doric pilasters are beautifully planted raised beds with a number of exotic plants and flowers.
Projecting out towards the garden the Orangery offers a well-lit space for photography and film, and makes a wonderful entrance for wedding ceremonies.
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If you would like to visit the magnificent spaces at Prestwold Hall, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help with your enquiry.
