Prestwold has been quietly getting on with things for centuries — a great Leicestershire estate of parkland and avenues a few miles east of Loughborough — and the Hall Barns are its most charming corner. They were raised in 1889 as a model farmyard for the Packe family, the sort of confident Victorian project that treated cowsheds and feed rooms as architecture worth doing properly. Then the yard fell quiet and the brickwork went to seed, until a restoration begun in 2011 brought it back. The barns opened for celebrations in 2021, and what you get now still looks and feels like a working farmyard — exposed beams, timber floors, honest brick — with heating, proper plumbing and a very good bar tucked into the old feed room.
The heart of it is the Crew Yard, a covered courtyard that neatly solves the eternal British problem of the outdoor ceremony: you get sky, rafters and fresh air without the gamble. From there the barn takes over for eating and dancing, and the gardens beyond are wide enough for stretch tents, lawn games and that long drifting part of the afternoon when nobody quite wants to go back inside. Every booking takes the barns and gardens exclusively, so there is no other party in the next room and nobody wandering through your photographs.
The numbers are comfortable rather than vast: 70 for a ceremony or a formal wedding breakfast, 100 if you would rather everyone ate something relaxed, and up to 150 once the evening crowd arrives. Food runs from canapés to feasts, hog roasts and wood-fired pizza out in the yard, and there is a semi-dry-hire route if you already have a caterer you love. Staying over is easy too, since the campsite and shower facilities come with the hire, there is glamping elsewhere on the estate, and the self-catering Laundry Cottage sleeps a small party of its own.
Where the band plays
The barn is the room for it. Timber floors and a high beamed roof give a band something to push against without turning the sound to mush, and because the space is one clear volume rather than a string of small rooms, a five or six-piece can set up at one end and still have the bar and the tables within earshot. Load-in is about as friendly as barn venues get, with vehicle access straight into the yard and no stairs between the van and the stage. Decide early whether you want the band backed by brick or by the open end towards the gardens — both look wonderful, and only one sits across the route to the bar.
How the evening unfolds
Drinks tend to happen in the Crew Yard or out on the grass, dinner moves inside, and the tables come back to make room for dancing as the light goes. Evenings here generally run to around midnight, which is a kind hour: it allows two full sets with a break between them, a proper last song, and enough of a wind-down that guests drift off to their tents rather than being turned out. If you want a DJ or a playlist to carry things on afterwards, have that conversation when you book, so the running order is agreed with the barn rather than improvised at 11 o’clock.
Bands available in Leicestershire and perfectly at home in a venue like this.
More live music in Leicestershire.
- Leicestershire Wedding Bands
- Leicestershire Events Bands
- Tribute Acts in Leicestershire
- Wedding DJs in Leicestershire
- Corporate Entertainment in Leicestershire
Worth reading before you book: Sound Limiters Explained. More questions answered on our England & Wales FAQs.