Ravenshall Mansion

About this property

Secretly nestled within more than fifty acres of private Essex countryside, the luxurious Georgian Ravenshall Mansion is the ultimate in party houses. With seven glorious bedrooms, extravagant entertainment spaces, special treats such as an indoor swimming pool, sauna, hot tub, gym, games rooms and absolutely stunning grounds which offer a tennis court and a lake, Ravenshall Mansion is the perfect place to bring the generations or your favourite friends together in a timeless, quintessentially English retreat. It is a brilliant venue for special celebrations with a celebration room within the house and a separate event barn available for hire.

This magnificent mansion is located in a quiet pocket of the Essex countryside, close to the village of Greenstead Green, near Halstead. In such a vast private estate, you will feel the tranquillity fold around you as you relax in absolute privacy. Greenstead Green is a charming, peaceful village, two miles southeast of Halstead, eleven miles west of Colchester and six miles from the Suffolk border. If you can bring yourselves to leave this private paradise, there is plenty to see and do with beautiful gardens such as The Beth Chatto Gardens nearby, amazing buildings such as Headingham Castle to visit, beach days at Frinton-on-Sea, visits to the wonderful Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve on the agenda and the very lovely Dedham with its quaint, pretty-in-pastel High Street, cosy tea shops and charming churches within easy reach. Dedham Vale is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty known as ‘Constable Country’ after the artist John Constable made the area famous with his paintings. From this wonderful location, you can also easily head to Cambridge for a day of history, culture and shopping.

As soon as you start driving through the private estate and arrive at this truly magnificent property, you will know you are in for a treat. It is an oasis of gracious and glorious living, a place of tennis racquets, croquet hoops, cream teas and champagne on lush English lawns and a stunning place for mature celebrations. The grand entrance way is stunning with its immaculate parquet flooring, a magnificent staircase, original artworks, and beautiful period features. Reception rooms radiate from this elegant hallway offering you the chance to mingle, party or slide away for some precious me time. You will relish in Ravenshall Mansion’s beauty and finery where there is charm and character in abundance, all marrying marvellously with handpicked vintage and modern furnishings. You will discover astonishing chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, elaborate ceiling mouldings, fantastic rich colour palettes and a baby grand piano where you can magic up some Mozart. The snooker room is very striking indeed in midnight blue and with a professional table, cosy leather armchairs, a beautiful chandelier, vintage cabinets, and eye-catching original artworks. Most of the reception rooms enjoy feature fireplaces that add a crackling atmosphere, and the celebration room is sensational in ivory and gold. The main living space comes in calm natural tones with oversized sash windows and French doors allowing the sparkling Essex light to stream in. Lavish velvet sofas and armchairs offer the perfect spots to relax, enjoy a movie or plan your adventures. Ravenshall Mansion is beautifully chic, effortlessly stylish and oozes both luxury and fun. As well as fabulous parquet flooring, you will discover highly polished marble floors and exquisite panelling to many rooms. In powder blue, the dining room is an astonishing panelled wonder with its enormous stately table and beautiful upholstered chairs, the perfect room for a celebration feast. A beautiful, bright, and airy garden room is a brilliant spot to escape to with your holiday book or the Sunday newspapers or to play a fun game of table football. If you need to catch up on work emails, there is a grand office space with its vintage desk, library, and feature fireplace. In anthracite grey, the chef’s dream of a kitchen offers exceptional appliances, a sociable island, and a handy breakfast table. You may want to enjoy the services of a professional private chef during your stay. Even the most discerning of chef’s would be delighted to cook in this light drenched kitchen. There is a separate utility room for laundry appliances. Even the downstairs cloakroom enjoys astounding interior design in dark grey and pink. The heated indoor swimming pool is a major bonus. Beside the large pool is your hot tub and sauna, the ideal spots to relax, unwind and rejuvenate. At the far end of the pool room, the gym is brilliantly well-equipped for those guests that want to maintain their fitness levels.

Upstairs, you will discover seven lavish, opulent bedroom suites, mostly with parquet flooring and all with swagger and style. There are sumptuous vintage beds, adorned with crisp cottons and luxurious soft furnishings, beautiful fabrics, exquisite drapes, masterly crafted ceiling mouldings, superb cabinetry and highly impressive, indulgent ensuite bathrooms. In a variety of styles, the bathrooms offer sensational styling, stunning tiling, and exceptional fittings. Every bedroom enjoys its own unique styling, many with feature walls that you will wish you could replicate. These are bedrooms for long, lazy, blissful lie-ins and the sleep of kings.

The magic continues outside where you can practice your tennis shots, dine alfresco, watch the stars, wander through acres of woodland, parkland and gardens, picnic by the lake and enjoy a tipple or two while you watch the sun go down. You can bring your four-legged friends to enjoy this wonderful estate. As well as being stunningly beautiful, Ravenshall Mansion offers an incredible array of entertainment from the Bluetooth sound system, Nintendo Switch games, elliptical, free weights, a stationary bike, treadmill and yoga mats in the gym, a table tennis table, pool table, snooker table, the pool, hot tub and sauna to the special celebration room and the enormous estate. This is a very special place indeed.

Ravenshall Mansion enjoys a splendid location near the village of Greenstead Green, just south of Halstead in the Essex countryside. Other nearby villages include Burton’s Green, Earls Colne, Plaistow Green, and Tumbler’s.

Though you may not actually want to leave this magnificent mansion and its many charms, there is much to see and do. One of the prettiest places nearby is Dedham with its gorgeous shop fronts, cosy tea rooms, charming pubs, and arty views. What makes Dedham so special, and the quintessential countryside escape is the surrounding Dedham Vale. You can start your day with a large helping of culture at The Munnings Art Museum with its large collection of Sir Alfred Munnings paintings. You can head to the Dedham Arts and Crafts Centre which is housed in a converted church and is a treasure trove of unique designs from more than sixty local artists and makers. There are plenty of gorgeous cafes and restaurants for lunch and then you can explore the countryside around this dreamy quaint place. You can cross the River Stour, follow the footpath opposite Dedham Boating Club and follow the river for an easy meander across beautiful landscapes to the pretty hamlet of Flatford. You should also seek out Willy Lott’s House which is the building in one of Constable’s most famous paintings ‘The Hay Wain’. It is lovely to hire a little boat from Dedham’s Boathouse and row your way along the River Stour to enjoy Constable Country from another perspective.

Hedingham Castle is the most iconic of all East Anglian fortresses commanding Essex for nine centuries. You can visit the historic gardens and keep of Hedingham, take one of the lovely walking trails around the estate and enjoy a picnic in the grounds. Well behaved dogs are allowed on leads in the grounds but not in the castle. You will take a trip back nine hundred years into its Norman history.

Gainsborough’s House is a wonderful museum celebrating the lift and works of Thomas Gainsborough. In 1958, Gainsborough’s House Society was formed to purchase the house and establish it as a centre for Thomas Gainsborough. The museum opened to the public in 1961. The museum was completely refurbished in 2019 and also features the works of other Suffolk based artists such as John Constable and Cedric Morris who greatly admired the works of Thomas Gainsborough. The museum’s beautiful garden is maintained by volunteers and includes a mulberry tree which is over four hundred years old.

The Beth Chatto Gardens are internationally renowned. During her lifetime Beth Chatto won countless awards for her garden design. She exhibited and won gold awards many times at the Chelsea Flower Show.  

Fingringhoe Wick was Essex Wildlife Trust’s first nature reserve when it opened in 1961 and its visitor centre opened some years later. It is set in a superb location overlooking the Colne Estuary and the Greedon saltmarsh with many walking trails, woodland, scrub, heathland, and ponds. The wildlife in these two hundred acres is amazing and there are ten watching hides.

Frinton on Sea is a small seaside town next to Walton-on-the-Naze with tree lined avenues sweeping down to its elegant esplanade and pretty shoreline which is sprinkled with colourful Victorian style beach huts. It is a wonderful spot for relaxation and is popular for its summer theatre and Frinton Literacy Festival. You can take boat trips to see the seals.

In the opposite direction, Great Dunmow is a small ancient market town which boasts one of the few remaining High Streets in the country to only have independent retailers. It is very pretty and steeped in history, dating back to the Roman times. It is famous for its ‘Flitch Trials’ which take place every leap year. As mentioned in Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’, couples must convince six local bachelors and six maidens that they have never wished themselves un-wed for a year and a day. If successful, the couple receive a flitch of bacon as a prize. Every third Saturday in September, the town hosts a family carnival, one of the largest rural carnivals in the UK. The Great Dunmow Maltings is an award-winning restoration of a Grade II listed building. The town offers great restaurants, boutique shopping, charming pubs and a spa where you can head for some pampering.

Accommodation

The House

Ground Floor
- Entrance Hall
- Ball Room
- Billiard Room
- Small sitting room with a piano
- Drawing Room
- Dining Room (seats 14)
- Kitchen with smaller dining table (seats 10) and breakfast bar (seats 4) with an integrated oven, aga, electric hobs
- Pantry
- Utility Room
- Conservatory with small sofa, table football and board games
- Office and library room
- Cloakroom
- Indoor Heated Pool (with can be accessed via the kitchen through long corridor or via the outside), set to 30 degrees
- Sauna (seats 6)
- Hot tub (seats 4)
- Gym
- Shower
- Two WCs
 
First Floor
- Main Bedroom (super king) with an en-suite bathroom with shower and stand alone bath, private balcony
- Versailles Bedroom (emperor bed) with a private bathroom with stand alone bath and shower (not ensuite, a walk across the corridor) and private balcony
- Two twin Bedrooms (super king or twin, please request)
- Family bathroom with stand alone bath and shower
- Garden Bedroom (super king) with sofa bed and an en-suite with stand alone bath and shower
- Paddock Bedroom (super king) with a private bathroom with stand alone bath and a shower

The Lodge
- Bedroom with an en-suite bathroom
- Sitting room
 
Exterior Grounds
- 52 acres of land
- Tennis Court
- Fire Pits
- Lake

Additional Facilities
- Charcoal BBQ
- Nespresso coffee machine
- Wi-Fi
- Smart TV's
- Cot and highchair (please request)
- Parking
- 2 Dishwashers
- Washing machine & tablets provided
- Dryer
- Cutlery / tableware for 22 persons