Past & Present

Now

Hazelwood offers gracious and comfortable accommodation in 14 bedrooms. The restaurant is fully licensed and is always open to non-residents. We like to ensure that our food is sourced from quality, local and organic producers wherever possible. The drawing room, main hall and Chapel Gallery are all licensed for wedding ceremonies. Both the drawing room and the dining room have beautiful french windows opening out on to the Wisteria laden veranda, making the house and its environment a perfect setting for weddings and house parties.

An ancient oak tree guards the entrance of the house. Both of which are supported and surrounded by unspoiled nature. At Hazelwood we put the earth first. The river and valley below provide a haven for all kinds of wildlife such as deer, foxes and birds, as well as allowing visitors time to explore and recouperate in it’s abundance of natural tranquility.

With its own water supply from an ancient spring and a river running through the grounds, Hazelwood really is the perfect place to relax, reflect and refuel.

Then

Hazelwood is an early Victorian house and was the home of the Peek family for generations. The Peeks were originally tea merchants who later amalgamated with the Freans to become famous for tea and biscuits. In its pre-war hey-day the house was a hub of a 1000 acre estate with four farms; a chapel and a schoolroom for children living on the estate. They even had their own Mausoleum as well as a separate burial ground for staff. Those pre-war years saw dances in the drawing room and boxing day meets outside the front door. The beautiful woodlined stables housed hunters and no less than nine gardeners were employed to keep the gardens. Servants lived on the top floor and estate workers came through the back door to the office (still our office) behind the kitchen to collect their weekly pay. Post war years saw the decline of this style of living. There were fewer staff, the chapel became a squash court and the schoolroom a billiard room. Keeping up with the extensive gardens, driveways and buildings became too difficult to manage and soon the lifestyle that there once was had gone.

In around 1986 the son who was to inherit the estate decided to put Hazelwood on the market. Property developers bought it and sold off the adjoining farms and land leaving 67 acres, the heart of the estate, which they planned to split into 27 small lots and sell off for separate development. It was at this point, in 1988, that the present owners came upon the house and through a miracle found the money to buy it and give it a new lease of life for all to enjoy.