Open House and Gardens

The house a Victorian fortune built, open for one Sunday in autumn

Robert Stayner Holford inherited more than a million pounds from an uncle in 1838, then spent the next few decades proving it. Between 1863 and 1870 he pulled down the family's Georgian house at Westonbirt and replaced it with the Elizabethan-style mansion that stands today, built by architect Lewis Vulliamy with every new technology Victorian money could buy: gas lighting, central heating, a fireproof iron roof. It's Grade I listed now, and Country Life once called it the finest example of Victorian architecture, landscape and gardens in the Cotswolds.

Westonbirt School has occupied the house since 1928, so open days like this are one of the only chances to get past the front door. Small-group guided tours run around 75 minutes and take in the hall, the state rooms and a room said to have been hand-painted by Mrs Holford herself, before the tour opens out into the 28 acres of formal grounds the family laid out, including the Italian Gardens and the Camellia House. Robert's son George, a serious amateur orchid grower, later expanded the planting further, and it's his work as much as his father's that shapes the gardens now.

It's the kind of house most of the Cotswolds only sees from a wedding guest list, opened up for anyone who books a ticket.

Sunday 27 September 2026 · Westonbirt School, Westonbirt, Tetbury, Gloucestershire GL8 8QG · Doors 10:30am