If you’re staying at the Caravan Club’s Moreton in Marsh site then please make the effort to visit Sezincote House and Gardens.  The entrance gate is off the A44 and is directly opposite the entrance to the Batsford Arboretum.  The House and Gardens are only open on Thursdays, Fridays and Bank Holiday Mondays from 2pm – 5.30/6.00pm and admission to both is £8 including a guided tour of the house. 

You can obviously go by car but if you fancy the walk then you turn right out of the site and follow the footpath towards Bourton on the Hill for around 20 minutes, cross the road and walk down the driveway for another 20 minutes and you’re there.  It’s an easy walk and the stroll down the drive is quite pleasant.  

Sezincote is a unique and extraordinary Indian House set amidst the Cotswold Hills.  The architecture is very surprising and you’ll see a central dome, minarets, peacock-tail windows, jail-work railings and pavilions.  A curving Orangery frames the Persian Garden of Paradise with its fountain and canals.  The house is set within a romantic garden with pools, waterfalls, a grotto and a temple to the Hindu Sun God.  The House was built in 1810 by Charles Cockerell who had worked out in India and was actually the inspiration for the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.

The guided tour of the house takes around 30 minutes and is a real treat.  You’ll get a real feel of the place and the guide gives you some wonderful snippets of information you won’t get in a brochure.  The garden is very tranquil and you can follow the water course all the way round, the planting is excellent and the noise from the dropping water is a wonderful relaxant.  

Oh, nearly forgot, there are tea and cakes to be had in the Orangery, or just sit and enjoy the view.  

“Down the drive, 

Under the early yellow leaves of oaks;  

One lodge is Tudor, one in Indian style.

The bridge, the waterfall, the Temple Pool  

And there they burst on us, the onion domes,  

Chajjahs and chattris made of amber stone:  

‘Home of the Oaks, exotic Sezincote.”          

Extract of the poem “Summoned by Bells” by John Betjeman