Elmore Court has been in the same family for something close to 800 years, which is long enough for the stories to get good. The estate was granted to the Guises in the 13th century for a yearly rent of one clove of gillyflower, and the house that stands there now — a listed Tudor manor of central hall and cross-wings, built in the second half of the 16th century — has since been a family seat, a school, and latterly the project of the current baronet, who inherited it in 2007 and set about making it live again rather than merely survive.
The result is one of the more genuinely unusual wedding venues in the country. The house keeps its grand hall for ceremonies and its bedrooms for the wedding party, 16 of them across the main house, and there are treehouses on the estate for anyone who fancies something stranger. Around 250 acres have been given over to rewilding, and a good deal of what you eat comes off the land itself — vegetables, herbs and beef from the estate, cooked in-house. The ancient parish church stands within walking distance for couples who want a church service first.
The piece that changed everything, though, is the Gillyflower. Opened in 2013 and built from estate timber and rammed earth, with a meadow roof and living walls, it’s a purpose-built party room that happens to be beautiful — and, crucially, it is properly soundproofed. Exclusive use covers the house, the gardens, the Coach House and the Gillyflower, so the whole estate belongs to you for the duration.
Where the band plays
The Gillyflower is where the evening happens, and it was designed by people who clearly like music. It holds a seated dinner of up to 200 and rather more standing, with a serviced bar and a dancefloor built in, a Funktion-One sound system and lighting by the artist Bruce Munro. For a band, that combination is close to ideal: a room with a real stage area, sound reinforcement that doesn’t need apologising for, and thick earth walls that mean the volume conversation simply never starts. There is no sound limiter to work around here, which is rarer than it should be.
How the evening runs
Ceremonies tend to happen in the house or the gardens, drinks spill out across the lawns, and then everyone moves across to the Gillyflower for dinner and dancing in the same room — no long trek, no loss of momentum. Evenings usually run to around midnight, though Elmore holds a licence well beyond that, so if you want a later finish it’s a conversation worth having early. A band set up in the Gillyflower can load in during the afternoon and soundcheck without disturbing anything happening in the house, which makes the timings unusually relaxed.
Bands available in Gloucestershire and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Gloucestershire.
- Gloucestershire Wedding Bands
- Gloucestershire Events Bands
- Tribute Acts in Gloucestershire
- Wedding DJs in Gloucestershire
- Corporate Entertainment in Gloucestershire
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.