‘Your house rocks. Please sell this to me... I will save up’

‘You must have people saying “What an amazing house!” all the time to you – but it is! I have had such a great time. I’m going to tell everyone about this fantastic place’

‘Pure debauchery. Love it’

In the know

House style

Enormous five-star Tetbury town house with separate cottage and apartment across the square

Grounds

Smack bang in Tetbury town, with extensive landscaped gardens and outdoor dining areas

Sleeps

16 (+ 4 under-eights only). Bay Tree Court across the square sleeps four. Chipping Apartment a few doors down sleeps six.

Ideal for

Glamorous gatherings and huge celebrations

Rates

Berkeley House: Friday to Monday, £3,500; Monday to Friday, £2,880; a week, £5,600; Christmas/NY, £7,000. Bay Tree Court: Fri to Mon, £650; Mon to Fri, £700; a week, £1,250. Chipping Apt: Fri to Mon, £750; Mon to Fri, £900; a week, £1,600.

Minimum hire

Three-night breaks at the weekend from 4pm on Friday to 10am on Monday. All three properties can be rented separately or together to sleep 30.

Also

Berkeley House, Bay Tree Court and Chipping Apartment are non-smoking. Pets are not allowed.

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Interior

Bedrooms 

There are eight bedrooms in Berkeley House: a master four-poster en suite, a double en suite next door and a separate four-poster en suite with its own wet room in the Orangery & Coach House (a separate building in the garden). There are also three twin rooms. There is a sofa bed available and two further camp beds – all three are only available to under eights though, for a charge of £75 per person per weekend. In Bay Tree Court there is one double room and one twin room. In Chipping Apartment, there is one double and two twin rooms.

First floor

Master Bedroom: The largest room, with a black four-poster bed frame, black denim walls, a black fireplace with painted white logs, an over-sized dressing table and en suite bathroom with an in-wall plasma TV. Bedroom 2: Double room with a studded red corduroy headboard and en suite bathroom with shower and bath. Bedroom 3: Twin room with grey chequered throws and cheeky cow prints.

Second floor

Bedroom 4: Twin room set slightly apart from the other three, on a lower mezzanine level. Decorated with mirrored black wardrobes and sharing a bathroom with a raindrop shower and bath with the other rooms on this floor. Bedroom 5: Double four-poster room with cool sloping floors, a black fireplace stuffed with painted white logs and a large white and grey day bed. Bedroom 6: All-black double room, featuring a black denim wall and peach-soft leather sofa. Bedroom 7: The smallest twin room, but with the highest views from the house.

The Orangery & Coach House

Bedroom 8: Large double room with a white, seven-foot four-poster bed and a wet room, set apart for total privacy in the Orangery & Coach House apartment in the grounds of Berkeley House. The apartment has a 50-inch flatscreen TV and cinema sound system in an adjacent entertainment/dining area.

Kitchen The fully equipped stainless steel kitchen has a dishwasher, caterers’ fridge, microwave and coffee machine. (There is a utility room with a washer/dryer next door.) The kitchen can easily cater for large groups, professional chefs or catering companies. There is a small charge for having the fridge pre-stocked. If you are self-catering and need to go shopping, see our ‘Services’ section.

Living room A huge entertaining room with four enormous sprawling day bed sofas and scattered soft leather bucket chairs under a sparkling chandelier. The lofty room is crowned with a 42-inch TV, DVD and CD system.

Dining room To the side of the open-plan kitchen is the conservatory dining room with a table that seats 14–16 under a suspended acrylic chain mail lighting system. The Snug, next door, is a jumble of leather sofas and bean bags; the perfect accompaniment to its PS2 and 40-inch flatscreen.

Other Chipping Apartment, a few doors down from Berkeley House, is an all-white space of oversized mirrors and painted white floorboards. The double bedroom is a tangle of patchwork bedspread and chandelier, whilst the twin room next door offers top-to-toe single beds, again with all-white décor (a third room, also a twin, mirrors that). There is a bathroom with shower and bath, a kitchen with washer/dryer, oven and microwave, and a dining area for six. Bay Tree Court, across the square, is a perfect add-on for guests of Berkeley House or Chipping apartment, and offers a double bedroom featuring Lena’s photography, a twin room, and a mirror-walled living room of daybeds, old black leather chairs, huge pieces of art and a dining area seating eight. There is a washer/dryer, oven and microwave in the small kitchen.

Outdoor

Gardens Berkeley House has extensive manicured gardens with three large tables (that can be configured to the space, seating up to 30), daybeds, sofas and chairs. A ‘fire pit’ with pre-chopped wood and barbecue awaits.

Parking There is one private space in front of the Orangery & Coach House, and free parking on the road in front of the house.

Other The Orangery & Coach House has a long room with a 50-inch flastscreen and cinema surround sound – perfect for movie nights, grand banquets at the vast table or private entertaining for the lucky couple staying in the double room next to it.

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Planes Bristol airport is the nearest, approximately one hour’s drive away.

Trains A direct train from London Paddington to Kemble takes one hour and 15 minutes. It’s a 10-minute taxi drive to Berkeley House. See www.trainline.co.uk for details.

Local taxi service Express Taxis +44 (0)7858 450 098. For car hire, click on our Travel Offers page. Smithcard holders get a 10 per cent discount with Hertz.

Directions by road The nearest motorway is the M4 from London. Leave the M4 at junction 15 (signposted Marlborough, Swindon) then follow the A419 towards Swindon and Cirencester. Continue on the A419 through Swindon and Cirencester, then at the fourth roundabout take the A429 (signposted Bath, Chippenham). Stay on the A433 (signposted Bristol, Bath) until you hit Tetbury. Drive past the town hall with its big clock on your right and cross the mini roundabout with the Snooty Fox Hotel on your right. Berkeley House is at number 16 The Chipping, just on your left. (Chipping Apartment is number 4; whilst Bay Tree Court is across the square).

Review

A silver lion knocker resting on the giant charcoal coloured front door signifies that something rather special lies inside this enormous self-catering house in the Cotswolds. Black and white chequered flooring beckons and draws you in, bowing and backing out into the hallway and through to the kitchen like a humble servant. A knee-buckling living room is so large that you could lose your echo in there. Style drips from every glass chandelier, seeps from every stretched, porous photographic canvas and reflects in every mirrored coffee table. Perfect for any celebration, family gathering or stylish break with friends, you can just feel the passion running through the veins of Berkeley House.

A Jacobean house with a Georgian front, its proportions are as huge as its character. Upon arrival, you will be shown a utility room you may never find again, whilst dozens of black mirror-panelled doors serve to disorientate. With sky-scraping Venetian mirrors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and walls chocka with the owner’s photography, this house is high glamour – with high hopes that its guests will understand and celebrate its eccentricity. A fusion of Hollywood-Georgian and contemporary grand, Berkeley House’s motto is ‘home from home that’s a world away’.

The owner, Swedish photographer and furniture designer Lena Proudlock, bought the house in 2003 and lived in it until 12 months ago. Furnished to her taste and adorned with her own work, this was her private house – designed by Lena, for Lena. Black dominates, with huge black fireplaces, shutters, corridors and radiators – yet space and light flood throughout. Most of the furniture was designed by ex-model Lena – but if you see the odd thing you recognise from Ikea, it’s not because she has economised, it’s because she fell in love with the piece.

Contemporary styling under Georgian coving, the double-size, double-height living room is a perfect party space. Four giant daybed sofas feel almost lost in there, whilst a 40-inch plasma hangs over a black fireplace piled high with painted white logs. Every time you enter the room you spot a different leather recliner or tub chair you hadn’t noticed before.

These lofty proportions continue through to the stainless steel kitchen with room to cater for 30 and a hanging tap so large you could shower under it. The adjoining conservatory dining room has grey studded denim chairs (Lena was crowned ‘Queen of Denim’ by World of Interiors) and a table so stretched that you’d need a relay team to pass the salt. Black plates and cake stands live under a blown-up photograph of girls wearing bikinis and masks, whilst freshly-cut white roses are stacked neatly in white bowls. Look up to the glass roof and you’ll spy blue halogen spotlights that come out to play at night. Perfectly coiffed gardens landscaped by Philip Nixon extend beyond, with a huge oblong gravel courtyard, a ‘fire pit’ and £2,500 worth of barbecue that just begs you to come out and party. Use of the Kubb set – an ancient Viking game that’s a cross between croquet and chess – is obligatory.

This passionate playfulness is applied to all eight bedrooms, yet the house is a serious work of art. Mirrors framed with light bulbs, black denim walls, huge hologram photographic enlargements; every room celebrates the dramatic side of life. A black four-poster frame in the Master Bedroom hides devilish black sheets under a crisp white duvet, while a plasma TV nestles in the en suite bathroom wall. For those seeking privacy, the Orangery & Coach House apartment in the garden boasts a white, seven-foot four-poster and its own wet room, not forgetting the 50-inch flatscreen media room – as if you could.

If your group is really sizeable, Chipping Apartment – just a few doors down – can also be rented, sleeping six; and Bay Tree Court across the square sleeps a further four. Situated in the heart of this Cotswold-stone town, all three properties are just steps from Tetbury’s shops, cafés and pubs.

Reviewed by Charlotte Crisp

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