Water All Around
Perfect wedding, the moated crossing leading into Crow's Hall estate.
Cross the water, and Crow's Hall becomes an island that's entirely your own.
The Crossing
The drive in runs half a mile, between three-hundred-year-old oaks planted in a double row, an avenue known simply as The Walk. Then the trees fall away, the water appears, and you cross onto an island that, for the length of your stay, belongs to no one but you.
A moat is a boundary in the oldest, simplest sense. Cross it and you are somewhere else entirely, cut off from the road, the village, the ordinary traffic of a Saturday. Nobody arrives here by accident, and nobody passes through on their way to somewhere else.
Crow’s Hall Moat
A Few Days, Not a Few Hours
Because the estate is private and entirely self-contained, a wedding here rarely lasts a single evening. Depending on the route chosen, couples and their guests can be on site for up to seven days, with the Hall itself available for up to six nights. An Intimate Celebration, based around the island gardens alone, typically brings two nights in the Hall. A full Estate Wedding, drawing on the gardens, the Long Barn and the glamping meadow together, can include further nights in the Hall and up to four nights of glamping alongside it, for the kind of gathering that has, in the past, seen 120 guests settled into 60 bell tents across the meadow.
A wedding at Crow's Hall is closer to staying at a friend's family home than a single fixed event, because, in every practical sense, that is exactly what it is.
Set around the Moat, glamping meadow
Guests relax within the gardens set within the moat.
"You made our wedding what we hoped it would be, a relaxed, fun weekend with everyone we care about."
The Island Gardens
The moat is not only a boundary. Since Caroline's restoration, rowing boats are kept on the water. Jetty terraces reach out from the island gardens to the water's edge.
The gardens were designed in 2007 by Xa Tollemache, built in part on the foundations of a wing of the house long since lost, and organised into a series of distinct garden rooms: a courtyard garden, the Pool Garden, an amphitheatre cut into the lawn, a miniature Tudor knot garden, a herb garden and potager, and the wide marquee lawn where the larger celebrations gather.
Newly weds within the gardens
A Name Older Than the House
Crow's Hall was first recorded by name in 1331, taking its name from John Crow, noted in the Hundred Rolls of 1274 to 1275. The Hall as it stands today, largely Tudor, was built in 1559 for the marriage of Sir Charles Framlingham, but the water and the site itself are older still. It has been continuously occupied for the better part of seven centuries, through the Framlinghams, the Gawdys, a spell of disrepair, and a long line of families since, until Caroline bought it in 2005 and began the restoration that shaped the estate as it stands today.
Crow’s Hall Wedding brochure
Getting in Touch
The moat and island gardens are used for a small number of private weddings each year. Caroline arranges route enquiries and private viewings of the estate directly.
The current wedding brochure is available on request.
