Tour of Sezincote House and Gardens

Sezincote is unique. At the heart of a traditional, family-run estate covering 3,500 acres of rolling Cotswold countryside stands a 200-year-old Mogul Indian palace, set in a romantic landscape of temples, grottoes, waterfalls and canals reminiscent of the Taj Mahal.

Visitors are welcomed to the house and garden at the set opening times, and a very few special weddings are hosted every summer.

Sezincote sits at 600 feet above sea level in the North Cotswolds. The House is still privately owned and remains at the centre of a thriving agricultural estate, which provides resources both to maintain the house, and to sustain the complex tapestry of rural life.

Sezincote remains a genuine ‘family affair’ with a brother and sister team managing the house and estate respectively with continued support from the older generation and some engaged interest from the younger.

The House is far from traditional - it was built in the “Indian Style”, a unique combination of Hindu and Muslim architecture. The gardens were designed with the help of Humphrey Repton. Sezincote is credited with influencing the design of the Brighton pavilion after a visit by The Prince Regent in 1807.

Nothing quite prepares you for Sezincote. After winding through the mighty oaks that line the long drive of this Gloucestershire garden on the edge of the Cotswolds, you see a weathered-copper onion dome straight out of India. The south front, complete with curving orangery, unfurls above a Repton landscape that has remained unchanged since the mid-19th century. The garden is blessed by a series of spring-fed pools, connected by gurgling water which eventually tumbles into the Island Pool in the valley bottom, before joining the River Evenlode below.