From 1607, Beaulieu came to one building on Palace Lane to do its business. The inn on this site hosted the village’s annual fairs and its weekly markets, timber auctions and lectures, and a yearly cattle market that ran until 1809. Its successor, the Montagu Arms, now holds weddings at two very different scales: a ceremony and dinner for up to 32 in a panelled room looking onto the garden, or the whole hotel for up to 150. The Beaulieu River runs below, and the bedrooms are spread through the house, the courtyard and the Hayloft Barn Suites, which stand apart.
From The Ship to W. H. Mitchell’s inn
The first inn here was The Ship, popular with local farmers and parish officers. It became The George, and there has been an inn on the site since the 16th century. In 1887 the old front came down, and the local architect W. H. Mitchell designed its replacement, an arts and crafts building that included the bar now known as Monty’s Inn. It was finished in 1888, and Bizan and Fletcher added a wing in the 1920s.
The hotel was listed Grade II in December 1975: brick with stone dressings, an upper floor tile hung or timber framed, and roofs of plain and fishscale tiles, in a Tudor and Jacobean manner, with a jettied central gable, stone mullioned windows and chimney stacks set diagonally in clustered shafts. Inside, the oak floors, panelling and old brick fireplaces survive, and the wedding rooms keep their parquet, panelling and original fireplaces.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who set the opening chapters of The White Company at Beaulieu Abbey, was among the hotel’s guests, along with the actor Henry Irving, the novelist Sir H. Rider Haggard and General Charles de Gaulle. In 1943 it was one of several public buildings made ready as Home Guard defensive positions, a period recorded in a scrapbook of orders, letters and hand drawn maps kept by the wartime commander, Sir Morgan Crofton. The present owners have held the hotel since 1970, and it belongs to a family owned collection.
An abbey village at the head of the tide
Beaulieu, from the French beau lieu, a beautiful place, takes its name from the abbey King John founded in 1203 or 1204 for 30 Cistercian monks from Cîteaux. After the abbey surrendered in April 1538, Thomas Wriothesley, later the first Earl of Southampton, made its great gatehouse the core of a mansion that survives as Palace House, home to a branch of the Montagu family ever since, and the monks’ refectory became the parish church it still is. Palace House overlooks the village from across the river.
At Beaulieu the river turns tidal; its tide mill worked until 1942. Below the village it is navigable to small craft and runs past Buckler’s Hard, two and a half miles south, where wooden sailing ships were built, Nelson’s Agamemnon among them. The river, bed included, belongs to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.
The Oakwood Room, for 32
The smaller wedding is built around one room of 5.8 by 4.85 metres. The Oakwood Room seats 32 for a ceremony or a wedding breakfast, with parquet underfoot, pastel panelling, leaded diamond windows down one side and an original brick fireplace at the front, which couples have dressed with a floral arch; it is bright through the day and turns dusky as the sun goes down. The Intimate package uses it for four to 32 guests, from £2,800. At this size the wedding shares the building: the Terrace Restaurant goes to weddings only on private hire, so on an Intimate day it stays the hotel’s working dining room, and Monty’s Inn stays the village pub.
One winter wedding for 23 was black tie, with the ceremony at four as the light went, English sparkling wine and canapés indoors, and dinner at half past six. Another couple gathered their guests in the bar, married in the garden and came in to the Oakwood Room to eat. For ten or fewer, the Paris Room, from the original 17th century building, takes a ceremony or a private dinner beside its open fireplace.
The whole hotel, for up to 150
Private hire of the whole hotel starts from £21,500 for 50 to 150 guests: 100 through the day, with 50 more invited for the evening. It brings in the Terrace Restaurant, a wood panelled room of 12.15 by 11.5 metres with ornate windows and French doors onto the terrace, which takes a ceremony or a wedding breakfast of 100 and an evening reception of 150. On private hire the whole hotel, with all 33 bedrooms, belongs to the wedding party.
One couple who took the whole hotel married in a local church and named their return for the drinks reception, driving back past the river, as their favourite moment of the day. Clara Earp, the Wedding and Events Manager, who joined the hotel in 2012, suggested a mix of round and square tables for their dinner, and their Labrador was with them throughout, since the hotel welcomes dogs.
Between the ceremony and the meal, guests can walk down the lane to the river, over the gated bridge and back into the garden through the iron gate in its ivy covered wall. The route uses a public lane rather than a private drive, so the village ends up in the photographs, and it depends on the weather in a way the panelled rooms do not.
A garden in the Jekyll manner
Ceremonies are held outdoors on the lawn, with a plan B in place for the weather, and the hotel recommends hiring chairs for them. A couple set on a lawn ceremony should ask the wedding team to set out the licensed outdoor space in writing before fixing the date. The garden takes its lead from Gertrude Jekyll, with a pond fountain by Giuseppe Lund, croquet on the upper terrace and a magnolia, and the wedding breakfast can be served outside.
Wisteria hangs over the way into the courtyard, where raised beds are planted for pollinators.
Behind the greenhouses a kitchen garden grows Jerusalem artichokes, beetroot and lettuce among edible flowers, and the garden belongs to the National Garden Scheme. Biodegradable confetti is allowed on the lawn; open candles are not, though LED candles and candles enclosed in glass lanterns are.
One kitchen, forest and coast
There is no outside caterer to choose: the hotel’s kitchen feeds the whole wedding. The Terrace cooks to the seasons with produce from the forest, and cured Chalk Stream trout, South Coast fish and Lyburn Farm cheese recur on its menus. The couple who took the whole hotel served poached Chalk Stream trout, roast chicken with braised peas and a New Forest strawberry pavlova, then sliders and tempura prawns in the evening. Children are charged at £40 each, including a meal and a drink.
In the Terrace, velvet chairs are drawn up to tables set against the panelling.
Monty’s Inn, part of Mitchell’s 1888 building, pours drinks from noon to ten every day, cooks pub classics, South Coast fish and a children’s menu, and lets in dogs, children and muddy boots.
Bedrooms across the house, the courtyard and the barn
The 33 bedrooms and suites come in seven types, and they are not all under one roof. The house rooms have four poster beds, wood panelling and lead lined windows; the Courtyard Retreats, Suite and Residence lie across the courtyard, some suites stepping straight out onto the gardens, and the Hayloft Barn Suites stand apart again. Nightly rates run from £220 for a House Snug to £1,920 for the Courtyard Residence. A Courtyard Retreat makes a good bridal suite, with a high ceiling, a marble bathroom with panelled walls and a private terrace.
Southampton Airport is about 35 minutes away by car and Bournemouth about 45, the M27 around 20 minutes, and Beaulieu Road station a few miles across the forest. Parking behind the hotel is free.
Deciding the size of the day
Clara and Paige Aydon, the Wedding and Events Executive, show couples round in person; the deposit is £600, paid with the agreement form, and same sex weddings and civil partnerships are welcome.
Beaulieu once brought its fairs and its auctions to this inn, and a wedding here still happens in the inn’s own rooms. There is no ballroom and no separate function suite, only the hotel’s own panelled rooms and its garden. That makes the guest number the decision that settles everything else. Up to 32, and the day belongs to the Oakwood Room while the hotel carries on around it; from 50 to 150, the whole building is yours. Neither package covers 33 to 49 guests, so a couple close to that range should raise it at the first conversation. Read the Montagu Arms profile, see weddings in Hampshire and what a wedding in Hampshire costs, and when the number is fixed, check your date.
