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Ashford House
Candlelit oak table laid for dinner in the dining room at Ashford House

Dining

A single table, set twice a day.

There is no à la carte and no second sitting. Dinner is one menu, written each morning from what the garden gave up and what the valley had spare, and served at seven to whoever is staying. Eating here is less a service than an hour of the house's day that you happen to be part of.

The dining room at Ashford House laid with linen and candles
The Dining Room, east wing

The Dining Room

Five courses, no choices, from seven.

The room was the original hall: lime plaster, two long windows onto the parkland, and a single oak table that seats twenty-two when the house is full — which, with eleven rooms, it rarely quite is.

The menu is written by hand each morning and pinned by the stair. Five courses, paced slowly, poured from a list that leans English and Loire. Dietary requirements are handled quietly in the kitchen rather than announced at the table.

Dinner
Nightly, from 7pm
Menu
Five courses · £95
Wine
Pairing £65 · Cellar list from £38

Provenance

Grown, or grown nearby

Almost nothing on the menu travels further than the next valley.

Freshly cut vegetables and herbs in a wooden trug on a stone kitchen table
The morning cut, kitchen garden

The walled garden

Cut at four, on the table by eight.

Two acres of walled kitchen garden supply the greater part of the menu between April and October — leaves, roots, herbs, soft fruit, and more courgettes in August than any kitchen can reasonably use.

What the garden cannot give comes from within twenty miles: mutton from the ridge, cheese from a dairy at Kingham, trout from the river below the village. The list of suppliers is short enough to be read aloud, and often is.

Garden
Two walled acres
Suppliers
Eleven, all within twenty miles
Kitchen lunch
Fridays & Saturdays
Breakfast laid by a tall window in morning light at Ashford House

Breakfast

Unhurried, and largely wordless.

Bread from the range, eggs from the orchard hens, fruit from the garden and coffee brought to wherever you have settled — the terrace, the drawing room, or back upstairs with the door closed.

Served from eight until half past ten, and included in every rate. Nobody will ask whether you are finished.

The candlelit cellar bar beneath the old dairy at Ashford House

The Cellar Bar

Stone, candlelight and a short list.

Beneath the old dairy, where the stone keeps its own temperature. Sloe gin made here, English sparkling by the glass, a handful of aperitifs and one very good whisky that is not on the card.

Open from six until late, and on Saturdays given over to a tasting of six bottles poured by candlelight.

Enquire

Reserve the table, or the whole evening.

Dinner is open to house guests and, when there is room, to a small number of visitors. Tell us the date and how many are coming.

Or write to stay@ashfordhouse.co.uk. We reply personally, usually within a day.

Elsewhere at Ashford House