Sir Lionel was obviously a man of great vision and no little taste as he immediately set about turning the Hall into one of the finest mansion houses of the era. Today, we at Elite Hotels are proud to be able to carry on the tradition and have taken great pains to restore the Hall in the way we believe Sir Lionel would have wanted, and turned it into a gem of a Hampshire Country House Hotel everyone can enjoy. The magnificent walnut panelled reception area and staircase that greets you on arrival harks back to the estates former Elizabethan days. And the period lounges and each and every room and suite has all been lovingly restored to enhance its individual character. We’ve lavished just as much care and attention on the grounds and out buildings, and just as spectacular are the gardens. They were originally created under the guiding hand of the famous garden designer and planter, Gertrude Jekyll, whose renowned eye for creating gardens of colour is in evidence everywhere, and today the gardens are amongst the famous historic gardens that can be visited in the south of England. Tylney Hall is a Grade II listed building and remains an outstanding example of a luxury country house hotel that has never lost its old world sense of charm, and continues to set standards across the hospitality industry.
The Grounds
Past
Through its history, Tylney Hall has served a number of purposes including a school from 1948 to 1984. This period caused the once immaculate gardens to suffer greatly as The formal gardens were concreted over and turned into tennis courts, while other areas were left to overgrow and deteriorate.
Present
Since 1985 a painstaking restoration programme has been in place to reinstate the gardens to their former glory. Current achievements include bringing the Water Gardens back to their former glory, restoring the lake bridge, planting the Kitchen Garden with top fruit and creating an herb garden, the produce of which is now being used in the Kitchen.
Future
Projects include restoring the circular rose garden, azalea garden and Gertrude Jekyll’s original herbaceous borders. The rose garden restoration is a project we are going to focus on in the future. The overgrown yew hedge, which encircles it, has been cut to a manageable size. We have cleared and grass seeded the area and it will be replanted with a collection of old roses to the original design.
