Boconnoc is one of those estates that feels slightly unreal on the approach. A two-mile private drive takes you in through parkland and woodland to a Georgian house looking out over a lake, with hundreds of acres of countryside in every direction and not another building in sight. It is only 25 minutes from some of the best villages on the south Cornish coast, but you would never guess as much from the grounds. The estate has taken Gold for best wedding venue in Cornwall in consecutive years, and once you have walked the parkland it is easy to see why.
The house gives you four grand rooms — the Garden Room, the Drawing Room, the Smoking Room and the Panelled Dining Room — along with a lawn and terrace that take a marquee comfortably. Then there is the Stable Yard, five separate spaces including a rustic bar and a games room, which is where a great deal of the fun tends to end up. Ceremonies can be held in six different places: the estate’s ancient parish church with its vaulted ceiling, the Dorothy Garden with its stone fountain, an 18th-century bath house built on Roman lines, the house lawn, the Coach House, or the Drawing Room for something small.
Accommodation is unusually generous. Five properties across the estate — Boconnoc House, the Stewardry, the Dairy House, the Grooms House and the Head Groom’s House — sleep 54 between them, so a good chunk of the guest list simply stays put. Catering is completely open: choose from the recommended suppliers or bring in your own, with the estate’s own emphasis on local, low-mileage produce there if you want it. And you have the entire place, exclusively, for the duration.
Setting the party up
Because Boconnoc gives you several buildings rather than one big room, the music question is really a question of where you want the party to be. A marquee on the lawn is the usual answer for larger numbers, and it is the most flexible option for a band, since you choose the stage position, the power and the layout. The Stable Yard is the alternative, and a lovely one — enclosed, atmospheric, bar built in, and a scale that suits a tight four- or five-piece rather better than a big horn section. The house rooms are beautiful but domestic in their proportions, happier with a jazz trio over dinner than with a full dancefloor.
How the evening runs
The bar runs to midnight and the evening tends to be built around that: speeches done by eight, first dance somewhere around nine, then a long stretch of music with nobody watching the clock. With the nearest neighbours a very long way off, this is about as unconstrained as Cornwall gets, though it is still worth confirming the music finish for whichever space you settle on. Load-in is the one thing to think through in advance, as it is a two-mile drive in and the grounds are large — give a band clear directions and a sensible arrival window rather than leaving them to guess which building is theirs.
Bands available in Cornwall and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Cornwall.
- Wedding Bands in Cornwall
- Events Bands in Cornwall
- Cornwall Tribute Acts
- Cornwall Wedding DJs
- Cornwall Corporate Entertainment
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.