Holt’s architect was Percy Morley Horder who in the early twentieth century specialised in England’s “romantic vernacular” style. He was famously demanding of his collaborators and clients with an excessively artistic temperament that earned him the nickname “Holy Murder”.
In the years between the World Wars Morley Horder worked widely across the Cotswolds and Home Counties. One triumph was David Lloyd George’s country house in Berkshire. He also designed a number of Boots department stores for his friend the chemist Jesse Boot, and a lot of country estates for newly-rich men, including Walter Samuel, co-founder of Shell. There is something very Elizabethan about Mallory Court with its stone casements, tall gables, towering brick chimneys, mullioned windows and well-manicured ivy. Many of Morley Horder’s homes exhibit the influence of Edwin Lutyens, who dominated posh, early twentieth-century architecture in England. There is nothing overly grand here, just a lot of comfort.
The house, which has been a hotel since the 1990s, feels like an historic hideaway, full of courtyards and small formal gardens. An oak-panelled dining room, an outdoor swimming pool and squash court were all added in the 1930s but in 1995, the house was sold to Sir Peter Rigby. As part of Rigby’s design-conscious Eden Collection, Mallory Court has since been significantly developed as a luxury hotel with the addition of a new East Wing of master bedrooms in 1998, and Orchard House, the newest luxury spa in Warwickshire that began operation in 2017.
Inside, the hotel has a feeling of good, sensible comfort. Bedroom doors are opened with a metal key on a leather fob, and not a new-fangled plastic card. Lights are turned on and off using a single brass switch. Breakfast tables are big enough for one to read a newspaper while laying down the supplements to one side for later. Windows open easily to let in fresh air, and the bath has an equally simple metal plug with two taps, one labelled Hot and the other Cold. This hotel has resisted the temptation to go down the route of so many rivals who have introduced dimmers, mixers, swipe cards, and machines that open the curtains for you from your bed (and often malfunction).
Nevertheless a recent £1.5 million refurbishment has turned all the hotel bedrooms into brilliant displays of colour thanks to dramatic wallpapers by ROMO and Designer’s Guild. And that splendid oak-panelled dining room has recently been renamed “The Warwick”. It is spacious and gracious with nattily dressed waiters in tweed waistcoats.
This renaming coincides with the appointment of Stuart Deeley as the hotel's new chef. “Stu” is a local boy who worked at Mallory Court in his youth and went on to its sister Eden property, Brockencote Hall, before a number Michelin-starred kitchens (including Simpsons in Edgbaston and the acclaimed Smoke at Hampton Manor). In 2019 he made a name for himself as the winner of the BBC TV series MasterChef: The Professionals.
Stuart’s new five-course menu (£105) contains many dishes that are personal favourites: Cornish crab with Isle of Wight tomatoes, poussin with a jamon sauce from his favourite city of San Sebastian, a pea and mint gazpacho using ingredients from the hotel garden, and baked alaska, a special childhood treat.
Guests include Sir Peter Rigby who lives nearby. Despite innovation, Rigby’s hotels continue to reflect the English country-house ethos of muddy wellies, cheerfully excited dogs, afternoon teas by a roaring fire and a hearty dinner to follow
