Some of the stone at Highcliffe Castle is medieval and French. When the diplomat Lord Stuart de Rothesay built his castle on the Dorset cliffs in the early 1830s, he had medieval carved stone brought from Normandy, from the abbey of Jumièges and from the Grand’Maison at Les Andelys, and built it into the new walls. The castle that stands there now is a nineteenth century idea of the Middle Ages, assembled in part from the real thing.
It then spent decades as a ruin. Two fires in the late 1960s gutted much of the interior, and the building was saved only by a restoration that ran through the 1990s. Today the Grade I listed castle takes weddings in rooms that were put back together within living memory.
A castle built for a diplomat
Highcliffe Castle was built between 1831 and 1835 on the cliffs at Highcliffe, close to the site of an earlier Georgian house, High Cliff House, whose gardens were laid out by Capability Brown. Charles Stuart, 1st Baron Stuart de Rothesay, commissioned it, and William Donthorn designed it in the Gothic Revival style. Stuart de Rothesay lived there until his death in 1845, and his daughter Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford, owned it until 1891 and spent her summers there.
The house then passed to the Stuart Wortley family, who owned it until 1949. In November 1907 Kaiser Wilhelm II stayed for about three weeks, and between 1916 and 1922 the American retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge rented the castle.
Fire, ruin and rescue
The twentieth century turned the castle from a country house into an institution. In 1950 it became a children’s convalescent home, and in the later 1950s the Claretian Missionaries bought it as a seminary, which they left in 1966. A fire damaged the Great Hall badly in 1967, shortly before three local businessmen bought the castle, and a second fire in 1968 did further damage. Restrictions on development left the building open to the weather and to vandals, and it deteriorated into a ruin.
In 1977 Christchurch Council compulsorily purchased the castle and opened the grounds and the route to the beach to the public. A lease offered in 1986 produced no restoration scheme, and a phased restoration finally began in 1994, funded by the council and English Heritage with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Major repairs, including the rebuilding of the East Tower, were complete by 1998. Work in 2008 opened the State Dining Room and the East Tower to visitors, and an 18 month renovation of the Penleaze Wing, finished in 2018, reopened rooms that had been closed for more than 50 years.
The rooms for a wedding
The castle offers four state rooms on the wedding day. The Wintergarden, a light filled room with floor to ceiling windows and high ceilings, is the ceremony room and seats up to 110. The Great Hall, with its nine metre stained glass Jesse Window, seats up to 110 for the wedding breakfast, and the State Dining Room, with exposed brick and hardwood floors, seats up to 80 on round tables and is entered along a fairy light walkway. The Drawing Room is the evening reception, with a bar linking it to the dining rooms, and holds up to 200.
The Great Hall was badly damaged in the fire of 1967, so a wedding breakfast there takes place in a room that has been restored.
Lawns, a woodland trail and the sea
After the ceremony, drinks and photographs take place on the front lawns beside the South Porch, with lawn games, outdoor seating and live music if the couple wish. A woodland trail leads from the grounds to Highcliffe Beach, and the cliff top lawn has a view over the water.
The evening centres on the Drawing Room, where a bar links it to the two dining rooms so that guests move between them without leaving the state rooms. The evening reception takes up to 200 guests in all.
How the day is run
Hire includes exclusive use of the state rooms, a dedicated function manager and team, chiavari chairs, 30 parking permits and a planning meeting with a ceremony rehearsal. Venue hire runs to 11pm, with an extension to midnight available, and wedding breakfast catering is provided by one of four approved caterers, with a ground fee of £250 for additional catering for drinks or the evening welcome. Couples can choose a Castle drinks package or bring their own drinks on a corkage arrangement, and the team chills and serves them.
What it costs
Ceremony only hire of the Wintergarden costs £1,225 from Monday to Thursday in 2026, rising to £1,350 in 2027 and £1,485 in 2028, and £1,400 on a Friday or Sunday in 2026. A ceremony with a reception costs £8,495 on a Friday in 2026, with hire from 2pm to 11pm, and £9,995 on a Saturday, with hire from 9am to 11pm. Venue hire does not include registrar fees.
The tariff runs to 2028, which suits couples planning well ahead. Ceremony only hire on a Friday or Sunday is £1,400 in 2026, £1,550 in 2027 and £1,700 in 2028, and on a bank holiday £1,650, £1,900 and £2,100. A ceremony with a reception on a Friday is £8,495 in 2026, £9,295 in 2027 and £10,195 in 2028, and on a Saturday £9,995, £10,895 and £11,995. A bank holiday reception costs £10,495, £11,495 and £12,595. A midnight extension is £650 and a candle package £350.
Planning your wedding
The castle is at Rothesay Drive in Highcliffe, near Christchurch, and the car park has a wedding bay. The castle is open to the public all year, so couples can see the rooms before they decide. They should ask which dates in their season are still free, since Friday and Saturday bookings carry the higher fees, and should plan registrar arrangements separately because they are not part of the hire.
A castle that was saved
Highcliffe suits couples who like a building with a dramatic past and a setting by the sea, and who want a venue where the wedding breakfast, the ceremony and the evening can share a single set of rooms. It works for parties of up to 110 at the table and 200 in the evening, and for smaller weddings on a weekday, when the ceremony only rate is the lowest on the tariff.
See the Highcliffe Castle profile, read the Highcliffe Castle issue of the magazine or browse wedding venues in the United Kingdom. When you are ready, Check your date.
