A Gravetye experience starts long before you arrive. In fact, it starts as you turn off the quiet back lane that runs between Turners Hill and East Grinstead and begin the long, meandering drive down to the manor. Almost immediately, you know you are arriving somewhere special. There is a sense of leaving the everyday behind and quietly slipping into another era.
Gravetye Manor
Gravetye Manor was built in 1598 by a local Sussex family. Look out for the initials R and K carved in stone above the main entrance, a small reminder of those first inhabitants more than four centuries ago. But it is another former owner with whom Gravetye has become synonymous.
William Robinson, one of the most influential gardeners of his time, bought Gravetye and its 1,000-acre estate in 1885 and lived here until his death in 1935. His pioneering ideas about naturalistic planting helped transform British gardening, and his legacy remains woven into the landscape at Gravetye today.
In 2010, the manor was bought by Jeremy Hosking, who already had a longstanding affection for Gravetye and was concerned about its decline. Since then, considerable care has gone into restoring the house and, importantly, nurturing its historically significant gardens. The philosophy is one of great country house hospitality, coupled with a determination to protect and develop Robinson’s remarkable legacy and Gravetye is now part of the PoB Hotels group.
An invitation to lunch
I arrived on a particularly wet Sussex day, but before I’d had much opportunity to contemplate making a dash through the rain, a liveried doorman appeared with an umbrella to escort me inside. And that rather sets the tone.
Within minutes, you are enveloped by the sumptuous interior of this beautiful Tudor manor: wood-panelled walls, huge open fireplaces, welcoming rugs, dark beams and beautiful finishing touches including flowers from the garden, of course. I was there as part of Gravetye’s Meet the Makers experience, this time with Ettinger, the British luxury leather goods company founded in London in 1934. The experience celebrates producers and manufacturers who continue to practise traditional crafts and preserve skills that might otherwise be lost.
It felt an especially appropriate setting because craftsmanship, tradition and attention to detail are themes that run through almost everything at Gravetye,head gardener at gravetye
including the food.
Meet the chef
Executive Chef Martin Carabott joined the Gravetye team in March 2025. Originally from Malta, he has worked in some prestigious kitchens, winning the Roux Scholarship in 2018 while senior sous chef at Hide in London and subsequently completing a stage at the world-renowned three-Michelin-starred Eleven Madison Park in New York. At Gravetye, he heads a team continuing the manor’s long tradition of exceptional Michelin-starred dining, with an emphasis on seasonal, homegrown produce.
And when they say homegrown, they really do mean it. Carabott works closely with Head Gardener Tom Coward to make full use of the 35-acre estate, with its extraordinary walled kitchen garden, orchards, glasshouses and Peach House. The fruit and vegetables travel an enviably short distance from garden to kitchen, and that relationship between gardener and chef is very much part of the Gravetye experience. If you take in the stroll in the gardens, you may well see Tom Coward going about his work.
A feast for the eyes
They say you eat with your eyes, and that is certainly true here. Our lunch began with a delicious little amuse-bouche before the arrival of a starter of heirloom tomatoes, Peregrine peach, pine nut, Graceburn cheese and iced black olive. The plates at Gravetye are almost too beautiful to disturb. Colourful, delicate and exquisitely balanced, there are tiny details everywhere: flowers, herbs, unexpected flavours and textures. The temptation is to spend several minutes simply admiring them before finally admitting that lunch is, after all, intended to be eaten.
Our main course was dry-aged Sussex beef fillet, cooked over coals and served with green peppercorn, alliums and grilled beans. The beef was perfectly cooked and melt-in-the-mouth, accompanied by lots of little surprises, including a wonderfully crisp deep-fried onion.
And then came apricot soufflé, served with chamomile, bee pollen and elderflower sorbet. The flavours throughout were subtle, unusual and sublime. Nothing overwhelmed anything else. Instead, each plate felt considered and beautifully composed, with the impeccable service adding to the sense of occasion.
As we were being thoroughly seduced by the menu, we were also learning about Ettinger and the traditional methods behind its luxury leather goods. I was fortunate enough to sit beside a member of the Ettinger family and hear first-hand about both the challenges and the considerable pleasure involved in continuing to make things properly, preserving traditional skills and resisting the temptation to sacrifice craftsmanship for speed.
Into the garden
No visit to Gravetye would be complete without exploring its gardens and, luckily, by the time lunch was over, the rain had disappeared and the heavy clouds of the morning had given way to sunshine. The transformation was glorious.
The gardens have magnificent views across the surrounding Sussex countryside, and immediately behind the manor is the Flower Garden. In late summer it is quite simply magnificent. It doesn’t so much flower as explode. Beds seem to drip, groan and burst with annuals, tender and herbaceous perennials. Bees and butterflies move amongst the blooms and everywhere there is colour and abundance.
A central lawn provides a moment of calm amongst all this exuberance, while paths and steps tempt you onwards. Follow one and another appears. Glimpses open across the valley before the manor suddenly reappears behind you, framed by flowers. Climb a little higher and you begin to reach the productive areas of the garden, bringing you back to the ingredients you’ve just encountered on your plate.
There is a thread running through the whole experience. The house is beautiful, but it isn’t simply about the house. The food is exceptional, but it isn’t simply about Michelin-starred dining. And the gardens are magnificent, but they aren’t merely something pretty to admire after lunch. They all belong together.
If you’re fortunate enough to visit Gravetye regularly, you’ll already know its pleasures. For many of us, however, it is somewhere to save and savour for a special occasion, the sort of place where the journey down the drive is part of the anticipation and where, for a few hours at least, the outside world feels a very long way away.
From the umbrella waiting for you in the rain to the flowers spilling over the paths, everything is delightful. Everything is a feast for the eyes. And, perhaps most importantly, everything conspires to make you feel just a little bit special. That is the Gravetye experience.
If you have enjoyed this article about the Gravetye Manor experience, you may also like:
