Bibury Court

This is a majestic Jac­o­bean man­sion, pic­tur­esquely situ­ated next to the old church in the ‘chocol­ate box’ Cots­wold vil­lage of Bib­ury, once described as ‘the most beau­ti­ful vil­lage in Eng­land’ by emin­ent Vic­torian artist and writer, Wil­liam Mor­ris. Bib­ury Court was built in 1633 by Sir Thomas Sack­ville, a ‘knight and gen­tle­man usher in dailie wait­ing to the king’ — James I, that is!

Nowadays, Bib­ury Court is a superbly appoin­ted, privately owned hotel set in six acres of deli­cious Cots­wold coun­tryside. Could any place be more Eng­lish, with its oak-panelled draw­ing room, log fires, four poster beds, ser­i­ous antiques, mul­lioned win­dows and oil paint­ings by the score? The set­ting is pristine, with vir­ginia creeper climb­ing the walls, clipped yew hedges, a rose arbour with lav­ender beds and the peace­ful tink­ling of the river Coln as it passes through the grounds. As a guest here you could throw a line in and pit your wits against the trout or simply meander along­side the river as it makes its way into the heart of the Cots­wolds. What makes Bib­ury Court a real home from home, how­ever, are the unob­trus­ively attent­ive and friendly staff.

The Bib­ury Court Res­taur­ant is an award win­ner – two AA rosettes, Cots­wold Life’s Res­taur­ant of the Year 2007 and the cur­rent holder of ’Taste of the West’ Gold award. Res­taur­ant Man­ager, Christina Lind­stadt, Head Chef, Ant­ony Ely and their respect­ive staff are respons­ible for food and drink in the res­taur­ant itself and guests may also eat in the con­ser­vat­ory, draw­ing room or, weather per­mit­ting, on the recently exten­ded ter­race. Ant­ony, who learned his trade in top res­taur­ants in Lon­don and Dub­lin injects his award-winning flair into devis­ing inspired menus. He is pas­sion­ate about the use of fresh local pro­duce and his dishes reflect a pleth­ora of regional spe­ci­al­it­ies and pro­duce in sea­son. His tal­ents also include that most tra­di­tional of Eng­lish treats, After­noon Tea, served on the ter­race in the sum­mer or beside a roar­ing log fire in winter.

You can expect a fine cup of cof­fee to accom­pany your superb meal, as Bib­ury Court became a cus­tomer of Café du Monde just last year, after hear­ing of them through these columns. They par­tic­u­larly wished to intro­duce Fairtrade cof­fees to the hotel. Ant­ony and Christina tasted sev­eral com­pan­ies’ cof­fees along with Gen­eral Man­ager, Philip Mason-Gordon. They unan­im­ously selec­ted Café du Monde who went on to install its styl­ish free on loan cafetière sys­tem and a Mon Ami 75 bean-to-cup espresso machine.

Says Ant­ony, “They endeared them­selves to us early on with the qual­ity of their Fairtrade cof­fee, which beat the oth­ers we tasted hands down. Since then, their sup­port ser­vice has sparkled with will­ing, help­ful advice and spot-on deliv­er­ies reg­u­lar as clockwork.”

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