De Vere Tortworth Court, a magnificent 4-star historic hotel with its own unique character in Gloucestershire.

Address: Wotton-Under-Edge, GL12 8HH.

Did you know we are obsessed with historic hotels? If only the walls of hotels could talk, imagine the stories they’d tell! De Vere Tortworth Court in Gloucestershire is a magnificent mansion house with its own unique character and history. Being a home to the Ducie family for over 350 years, it suffered a terrible fire afterwards, rose from the ashes like a Phoenix, and then was turned into a splendid country house hotel with 201 bedrooms, surrounded by 30 acres of rolling countryside.

The house you see today was built between 1849 and 1853. Henry George Francis, the 2nd Earl of Ducie, who owned Tortworth at that time, suffered with rheumatism and arthritis and hated cold winters at his country home in Woodchester. He decided to build a house in a place more favourable for his health conditions and commissioned Samuel Sanders Teulon, an English Gothic Revival architect, to create a house in the ‘high Victorian style’. Unfortunately, the 2nd Earl of Ducie died in 1853, before Tortworth Court had been completed. He was succeeded by his son, Henry John.

During the Second World War, Tortworth Court was used as a naval training base, then as a military hospital. In 1991, the Ducie family decided to sell the estate. It was bought with the idea of turning it into luxury flats, but a terrible fire damaged large parts of the building in 1991. In 2001, as the result of a £20 million restoration, Tortworth Court was opened as a luxury hotel.

The hotel oozes elegance and kept many of its original features: an imposing oak staircase at the centre; antique wall panelling, ornate archways and a grand fireplace in the 1853 Restaurant & Library Bar. To restore the body and mind, Tortworth Court has excellent Spa programmes and a swimming pool.