Ramster Hall has been growing gently for four hundred years. The oldest part of the house dates from the early 1600s, built by a wealthy glassmaker at a time when Chiddingfold was the centre of English glassmaking, and when that trade faded the place became a farm. The barn that is now the Long Hall went up around 1700 as a five-bay structure facing the farmyard. In 1900 Sir Harry Waechter bought the estate and turned it into a gentleman’s country house, converting the barn into an ornate beamed and panelled hall and adding the Great Drawing Room, the Brick Hall and the tower — which is why the building reads as both very old and rather grand at once.
The gardens are the other half of the story. Waechter carved them out of oak woodland with help from the celebrated Gauntletts nursery, whose taste for Japanese planting survives in the stone lanterns and maple avenues. From 1922 Sir Henry and Lady Norman took it on, and Lady Norman — a descendant of the family who created Bodnant — spent decades expanding the rhododendron and azalea collections from seed sent back by the great plant collectors. 20 acres of woodland garden are the result, spectacular in late spring and again in autumn, and the family are now into their fourth generation here.
Weddings take the house on exclusive use. The Long Hall is the main event room, seating 160 beneath its open beams and fairy lights; the Great Drawing Room, with its vaulted ceiling, panelled walls and grand piano, hosts civil ceremonies for the same number; and a private courtyard garden sits outside for drinks and photographs. The family charge no corkage at all, which across 160 guests is not a small kindness.
Where the band plays
The Long Hall is where the evening lands, and a long seventeenth-century barn with open beams overhead is close to the ideal room for live music. The sound has somewhere to rise into, the old timber takes the hardness off it, and the proportions mean a four- or five-piece fills the space for 160 guests without anybody needing to push the volume. Rooms like this flatter a band, and the fairy lights help too — a low, warm-lit room with a raised roof is simply a better-looking place to dance than a bright one.
The gardens and the afternoon
With 20 acres to wander in, the day here spreads out before it comes back indoors, and guests will happily disappear into the rhododendrons between the ceremony and dinner. That makes Ramster a place where acoustic music through the afternoon earns its keep — something quiet in the courtyard or on the lawn to hold people together, then the full band in the Long Hall once everyone is in.
How the evening runs
Evenings here have run to midnight and to 11.45pm, so this is a late venue by the standards of the county and the night has room to build properly: a full first set, a first dance that is not rushed, and a second set that peaks rather than simply stops. Confirm your own finish with the office when you book, then hand the number to your band so the sets can be built around it.
Bands available in Surrey and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Surrey.
- Surrey Wedding Bands
- Events Bands in Surrey
- Tribute Acts in Surrey
- Surrey Wedding DJs
- Corporate Entertainment in Surrey
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.