Discover two private and contrasting houses hidden away in deepest Wiltshire with lunch in the beautiful and historic Sign of the Angel Inn in Lacock.

Cleeve House

Visit Cleeve House, built in 1857 by Wadham Locke IV to replace a previous house owned by his father, where he and his five sisters made their home. In 1883 the building was sold to the Bell Family. Squire William Heward Bell pulled down a large amount of the building and rebuilt what is now the Great Hall and adjoining entrance porch in 1884. He and his wife had four children, one of whom was the famous writer and critic Clive Bell. In 1907, the final part of Cleeve House, including the Library and above bedrooms, were built as it was the year of Clive Bell's marriage to Vanessa Stephen. Both Clive and Vanessa Bell were important members of the culturally important Bloomsbury group, in which Clive’s writing was influential, and Vanessa was a prominent artist. The young Vanessa Stephen pursued art as her profession while her sister, Virginia Woolf, chose writing. Close to her sister throughout her often troubled life, Virginia Woolf visited Vanessa Bell in Cleeve House, and wrote about the house in her famous diaries. The Bell family crest adorns the front porch, and personal Bell inscriptions can be found among the stone and woodwork throughout the house. 

Cleeve House library

Later discover Grade II* Latimer Manor, a perfect small Cotswold manor, built around 1600 with an early Tudor window on the west front, an entrance front forming a characteristic “E” and a projecting two-storey porch between gabled wings. The porch opens into a great hall with a splendid grid of chamfered oak beams. The house contains a collection of monumental stone fireplaces, some of which have shallow Tudor arches. The house has likely links to the fiery young rector Hugh Latimer, who provoked uproar with his demand that the Bible should be translated into English and who was brought to the area under the influence of Anne Boleyn in January 1531.

Tickets £85 including coffee, tea and mince pies on arrival at Cleeve House, a two-course lunch with tea and coffee at the Sign of the Angel Inn, and refreshments with mince pies at Latimer Manor

Lunch options to be made available to attendees in November