Issue 44 winter 24 - Journal - Page 75
De Matos Ryan expands guest
accomodation at historic
british country house hotel that
inspired Alice in Wonderland
De Matos Ryan has collaborated with renowned interior designer Dorothée Meilichzon (CHZON)
to create a new pavilion building for Cowley Manor Experimental, Experimental Group’s beloved
and historic British country house hotel.
The new, stone clad, internally timber framed pavilion
houses five generous guest rooms with a variety of
interconnected family suite options. The extension
reinstates a refined but striking masonry pavilion on the
site of a long lost former Grand Ballroom from 1900.
Sat within 55 acres of Cotswolds countryside, Cowley
Manor Experimental is home to 36 bedrooms and suites,
the award-winning C-Side spa, restaurant (overseen by
Chef Patron Jackson Boxer), Experimental Cocktail Club
Cotswolds Bar, lounge, library and plentiful living rooms.
First constructed in 1695, the land was once owned by
Edward the Confessor and the property designed by the
renowned R.A.Briggs. It is also widely recognised as the
inspiration for Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
However, like many extraordinary country houses, Cowley Manor fell into institutional use during the war. It was
revitalised as a leading country hotel in 1999 in what was
De Matos Ryan's first significant commission. The
bedroom pavilion is a unique opportunity for the practice
to continue its sensitive design-led development of the
estate, described by Historic England as ‘one of England’s
best heritage-led development schemes. It shows that
with imagination and skill, old buildings can be given a
new and positive future’.
Once the idyllic rural retreat of the Horlick family of
malted drink fame and fortune, the Cowley Manor estate
was purchased during the Art Deco era by the young
Heber-Percy and his American wife, who set about ‘modernising’ the house. While glass-walled bathrooms in the
‘modern’ style were added, most of the decorated ceilings,
timber panelling, carvings, and statuary were removed
in an act that might now be considered unthinkable
vandalism. The demolition of the ballroom gave way to a
new outdoor swimming pool terrace, which the new
pavilion now elegantly occupies.
Typical of De Matos Ryan’s work, the new pavilion
playfully borrows from the past in order to create something meaningful for the future. Its arched openings and
scalloped stone bays present a contemporary but respectful reinterpretation of the original Italianate arched and
