Cowley Manor - Cotswolds
- Nick, Editor
- Sep 8
- 8 min read
Updated: Oct 23
a playful Cotswolds grande dame with a modern cocktail soul
Article summary>>
In this article, you will get our unbiased, independent review and thoughts on Cowley Manor in the Cotswolds UK
Rooms & suites
Food & Drink
Amenities
Service
Vibe
Location
Thoughts
Booking
The first thing you notice, beyond the honeyed stone and the sweep of lawn down to the lakes, is the light. It drops through the Cotswolds like a silk scarf, catching on the water-staircase and the last of the roses, slipping into the triple-height dining room and along the lacquered bar. Cowley Manor Cotswolds has always been about mood, Victorian showpiece turned 21st-century spa escape, and since its 2023 relaunch by the Experimental Group, that mood has sharpened into something both more daring and more welcoming.
This is a 36-bedroom country-house hotel set within 55 acres of Grade II-listed Italianate gardens and lakes, and threaded through with a distinctly Experimental sense of hospitality: design with a wink, mixology with gravitas, and service that knows when to melt away.
As a travel editor who judges country houses on both their edges and their ease, I arrived half-expecting pomp and sensible shoes. Now it's fair to say, this is not the first time I've visited Cowley, but every time you roll up to the property and see the grandeur, you always feel a little impostor syndrome creeping in. That is, until you walk into reception and get the "welcome back" and suddenly realise you're among friends, it's a real down-to-earth atmosphere and you're immediately into enjoying your stay, hospitality at its best.
Arrival & first impressions: Cowley Manor Cotswolds
Cowley sits around seven miles south of Cheltenham; the train to Cheltenham Spa from London is a shade over two hours, and it’s a 15-minute taxi ride on; drivers turn up the beech-lined drive to find the manor rising in classical profile beyond the lawns. Check-in is lightly theatrical, smiles, an easy handoff of luggage, and a brief orientation that tends to end with “shall we send tea to the terrace?”, and then you’re free to wander towards the lakes and that famous water-staircase of fountains. If you like hotels that feel composed but breathable, this is your place.
The estate itself is a story with chapters: seven natural springs feed upper and middle lakes; the 19th-century gardens were inspired by the Villa Borghese, all formal lines and theatrical vistas; and local lore insists that Lewis Carroll found ideas for Alice here, rabbits, hidden doors, a sense of the surreal at the garden’s edges. Playfulness remains a leitmotif, in design touches and programming alike.
Rooms & suites: a lived-in kind of glamour:
Rooms range from snug, high-comfort doubles to grand house suites whose four-posters and panelled walls make you consider cancelling plans for the outside world. The 36 bedrooms are intentional: intimate enough that you’ll recognise faces by day two, capacious enough that you’ll always find a quiet corner (or a rowdy one, if you’re heading bar-wards). Meilichzon’s palette runs warm and witty: baldaquin beds set the tone in bigger spaces; textiles nod to both French polish and Cotswold tactility; bathrooms are generous, with all the trimmings. It’s less “show home” than “weekend you’d like to live for a month.”
The best rooms frame the gardens, order coffee to the terrace at dawn and watch mist lift off the lake, or tuck you under old beams in converted stables where the scent of wood and wax has a way of making morning feel like a ceremony. In every category, the ergonomic details are right: proper desks; reading lights where you need them; sockets that don’t require yoga; and storage designed for actual travellers, not stylists. (Thank you.)
Eating & drinking: Jackson Boxer’s kitchen, ECC’s bar:
The restaurant is a handsome, triple-height room that opens onto a broad garden terrace. Jackson Boxer, of Brunswick House and The Hero in London, consults on menus that are British at heart with a soft French accent: think grilled native greens with anchovy; roasted Adlington chicken with wild garlic, and a quietly excellent Apple crumble for afters.
Sunday Roast is the move if you’re weekending (12:00–3:00 pm), and Afternoon Tea slides in as a genteel mid-afternoon pause (2:30–4:00 pm). Breakfast and lunch are more relaxed, the kind of cooking that understands how people actually eat when they’re here to feel good.
Come night, the locus shifts to the Experimental Cocktail Club Cotswolds, Cowley’s bar, where the group’s mixology comes to the fore. There’s a real DJ energy on Friday and Saturday, a fire lit in the hearth on colder nights, and a back-bar that rewards curiosity, clean martinis, and a wine list that ranges from comfort to curiosity. On a summer Saturday, the terrace becomes a kind of salon: dogs at heel, sun lowering over the cedar, and a lemon-peel glint in every glass.
C-Side Spa: slate, steam, and two honest-to-God pools:
You come to the C-Side Spa for heat, light, and time. The design is slate-lined and quietly luxurious; the facilities are the sort you actually use: a 17-metre indoor pool and a 15-metre outdoor pool, both heated year-round, plus sauna, steam, and four treatment rooms running a considered menu, from aromatherapy and pre-natal to straightforward sports massage.
Families are gently choreographed by set children’s swim times (8–11 am and 3:30–5 pm), which keeps the atmosphere blissfully balanced. Fitness offering spans Pilates, aqua fit, walking club, and the charmingly woo-woo “tree bathing,” and because this is England, someone will always offer tea at the right moment.
In midsummer, the outdoor pool is a film still: dragonflies stitching the air, deckchairs angled to the light, the distant trickle of the fountain cascade. In January, the indoor pool glows like a tonic; swim a few steady laps and watch the steam make a soft ruin of the windows.
The grounds: theatre, history, and a little Wonderland:
Cowley’s 55 acres take themselves just seriously enough, Grade II-listed in their own right, with the 19th-century water staircase flowing from upper to middle lake and on into the River Churn. The planting mixes drama (ginkgo, grand sequoia, atlas cedar) with English woodland whimsy; mornings bring woodpeckers and kingfishers, evenings the kind of violet light that makes you walk slower. Book a garden tour with the head gardener if you’re botanically inclined, or simply claim a deckchair and let the clouds do their slow work.
Programming bows to place: garden picnics under bell tents; outdoor cinema when the weather plays nice; cocktails classes that encourage foraging in the hotel’s own grounds. It’s an estate that makes room for both stillness and play.
Service & vibe:
The Experimental Group has imported its city know-how, polished, warm, non-pompous, and fused it with country-house patience. Staff are quick with local intel (walks, pubs, galleries), the bar team talks drinks like a second language, and housekeeping has that silent-ninja timing of you went to breakfast and returned to a new room. Weeknights feel residential; weekends are social in the best way, with the DJ-tuned bar a magnet after dinner. Families fit easily (thanks to those swim windows); couples find corners; groups monopolise a terrace table and surrender to the sunset.
Location:
Address: Cowley, GL53 9NL, on the south-eastern edge of Cheltenham. If you’re rail-bound, Cheltenham Spa is the nearest station (about 15 minutes by taxi); by car, you’re roughly 10–12 minutes into Cheltenham proper, which makes gallery crawls and a trot around Montpellier, the Regency district with boutiques and cafés, easy add-ons.
For nearby outings, start with these approved picks:
Painswick Rococo Garden – England’s only complete surviving rococo garden; winter snowdrops here are pure theatre. 20–25 minutes’ drive.
Chedworth Roman Villa (National Trust) – One of Britain’s most extensive Roman villas; mosaics, bathhouse remains, and a pleasingly nerdy visitor centre. ~20 minutes.
Gloucester Cathedral – C14 cloisters, and Harry Potter filming cred if you’re travelling with fans. 30 minutes.
Westonbirt, The National Arboretum – 600 acres and 17 miles of paths; autumn in Technicolour. 40–45 minutes by car.
Cheltenham, Montpellier district – For Regency architecture, shops, galleries and a civilised aperitivo; 10–15 minutes.
Value & pricing:
Country houses in the Cotswolds don’t come cheap, and Cowley plays in that band: recent destination listings peg rooms from around £300 to £695, with higher categories and weekends pushing north, and the occasional shoulder-season dip if your dates are kind. The arithmetic tilts in your favour if you’ll actually use the spa and settle into the bar; add a Sunday roast and an afternoon on the terrace, and the value becomes less about square footage than quality of day. For more information and to book a stay, click here
A steady Saturday for me at Cowley looks like:
Morning starts with the indoor pool to myself and a blast of steam before breakfast in the dining room: good coffee, a soft egg, something green to appease virtue. A garden ramble past the fountains to the lower lake, then reading on the terrace as the sun climbs. Lunch is a light salad and a glass of something mineral, and a swim outside if the weather is playing ball. Mid-afternoon, I surrender to C-Side Spa for a steam and massage; by five, the bar logs me as a repeat offender and slides across a pint of Guinness. Dinner at Boxer’s Kitchen, flavours layered, not loud, and by the time the DJ eases into a friendly groove, I’ve remembered why city people love the idea of long weekends in the country.
Pros & cons:
Pros
Design-forward yet comfortable rooms by Dorothée Meilichzon; intimate 36-key scale.
Strong food & drink: Jackson Boxer menus; Experimental Cocktail Club bar with DJ nights.
C-Side Spa with 17m indoor and 15m outdoor heated pools; proper sauna/steam; four treatment rooms. Family swim windows keep things calm.
55 acres of Grade II-listed gardens and lakes; classic water-staircase and easy walks.
Convenient for Cheltenham and the wider Cotswolds
Cons
Rates jump on prime weekends; best value mid-week/shoulder season.
The bar’s social energy on Fridays/Saturdays may read lively if you’re seeking monastic quiet.
Not a vast “destination spa” in the hydro-palace sense, this is boutique wellness, elegantly done.
Key details at a glance:
Location: Cowley Manor, Cowley, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL53 9NL; 15 minutes from Cheltenham Spa station; 6–7 miles into Cheltenham.
Hotel rating: 5 Star Boutique luxury; AA inspected property; restaurant holds 2 AA Rosettes.
Hotel vibe: Country house romance with a cosmopolitan bar scene; design-led but relaxed; a touch of Wonderland whimsy.
Food & drink:
Restaurant, Jackson Boxer’s seasonal British with French accents; Sunday Roast 12:00–3:00 pm; Afternoon Tea 2:30–4:00 pm.
Experimental Cocktail Club Cotswolds, signature aperitifs, DJ Fri/Sat.
Terrace & garden, drinks in summer; fireside in winter.
Hotel amenities: C-Side Spa with 17m indoor + 15m outdoor heated pools, sauna/steam, 4 treatment rooms; gym; fitness classes (Pilates, aqua fit, walking club, tree bathing); gardens tours; outdoor cinema & picnics in season. Children’s pool times 8–11 am & 3:30–5 pm.
How many rooms: 36 bedrooms across the manor and converted buildings.
Pricing: Typically £300–£695+ depending on date/category; Sundays and shoulder seasons can be softer.
Location recommendations & attractions: Painswick Rococo Garden (snowdrops, follies); Chedworth Roman Villa (mosaics); Gloucester Cathedral (cloisters/Harry Potter filming); Westonbirt Arboretum (autumn colour). Montpellier in Cheltenham for boutiques and Regency architecture.
The verdict:
Cowley Manor brings a unique countryside atmosphere tuned to perfection. The result is a country-house hotel that feels private but not precious, playful without ever tipping into parody. Come for the pools and the gardens, stay because the bar keeps pulling you back for “just one more,” and leave with the sense that your weekend had a purpose: walks, swims, something excellent to eat, and the easy knowledge that you’ll be back. A favourite stay for me when in the Cotswolds, it never disappoints.
All hotels & resorts on The Five Star Edit are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive a small commission from advertisers when using our affiliate links.
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