New Forest Christmas Houses

Enjoy exclusive tours of two contrasting country houses tucked away on the edge of the New Forest.

Explore Grade I Avon Tyrrell House, built in 1891 on the site of an earlier house, by John Manners-Sutton, 3rd Lord Manners, from the proceeds of a winning bet that he would be able to buy, train and ride the winner of the upcoming 1882 Grand National, purchasing a horse called Seaman for £1900 whose owner was not convinced that he would even stand the training. It is the last Calendar house to have been built with 365 windows, 52 rooms, 12 chimneys, 7 external doors, and 4 wings representing the seasons. The house was built and designed by the Arts and Crafts architect W.R. Lethaby and was described by Pevsner as “one of the finest houses of this date in England”. The fascinating history of the house includes its use as a convalescent home for injured New Zealand officers in WWI and its requisition by the army during WWII as an intelligence gathering post, hospital, and morgue. 

Pylewell Park © The Hon David Roper Curzon., CC BY-SA 4.0 

Later discover Grade II* Pylewell Park, a grand 17th-century manor house set in magnificent 19th-century pleasure grounds, overlooking the Solent and the Isle of Wight, with early 20th-century Asian and Australasian plant collections, a lily pond, and bridges brought from Japan. The architectural history of Pylewell is typical of many country houses, a 17th-century core subsumed within a larger 18th-century house, which in turn was sympathetically extended at the end of the 19th century. The house is built in ashlar stone and yellow brick and partly stuccoed, the central three-storey, three-bay block being flanked by two-storey wings, the late 18th-century two-storey building having been extended upwards by William Ingham Whitaker and his son between 1874 and 1903. On the north-east entrance front, the upper storey of both the main block and the wings is formed by a mansard, added in 1874, and the house is roofed in slate. 

Tickets £80 including a two-course gastro pub lunch at the Old Mill Inn. Lunch options to be made available to attendees in November 2026