Christmas at Waddesdon Manor

Waddeson Manor is a Manor house (surprisingly) located in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Waddeson Manor invite the public to join them for festive fun during the months of November-December (Wednesday- Sunday from 11AM-6PM).  Weekends are very busy at Waddeson Manor so they do suggest if you can to visit during the week.

We visited Waddeson Manor on Sunday 26th November and had the best day ever. We arrived at the car park at about midday and wondered over to the bus stop (about a 5 minute walk from the over flow car park). There was a short que but we got on the next available bus and the journey was about 5 minutes.

We had tickets to the Manor House so upon arrival we walked up the path and entered the house to ensure we didn’t miss our time slot. We envisioned the house to be full to the brim of beautifully decorated Christmas trees in every room (Annie’s mum had been the year before and said the Manor House was worth a visit). This year however the theme was animals but we felt like they could have made the exhibition a little bit more festive it was in fact very odd and a bit of an anti-climax. So if you are thinking about going to Waddeson Manor this isn’t something we would recommend doing spend your £10 on a couple of mulled wines instead.

The Christmas markets we located either side of the manor with a walk way and grass in between. The stalls had lights around them which looked particularly pretty at night. As usual most of the stalls were food related, not that we are complaining at all! We tried a lot of cheese, chutney and fudge on our way round and it was all delicious.

It took us about an hour and a half to wonder around the markets, we still had about 20 minutes before our afternoon tea so we enjoyed a delicious mulled wine & hot chocolate to help warm our bones a bit.

Festive afternoon tea at Waddeson Manor was incredible, it cost £25pp and was worth every penny. We were served a glass of champagne on arrival before ordering our tea off of the menu. They had a great selection of teas on offer but we all picked the English breakfast tea, it always feels wrong ordering a tea that isn’t English breakfast when having afternoon tea.

The selection of sandwiches or sandwich alternatives we should say were incredible and we all agreed that we much preferred having sandwich alternatives as they were less filling which meant we had plenty of room for the cakes. The sandwich menu included; Brie and cranberry tart, pork chipolata wrapped in bacon with honey mustard, smoked haddock rarebit and more.

The selection of cakes and desserts were also delicious and we loved the variety of flavours on our platesd. The menu included; mini mince pie, winter spiced apple pannacotta, homemade scone with jam and clotted cream and many more.

We didn’t feel like we were being rushed at all during our afternoon tea, the waiters and waitresses left enough time between the sandwiches and cakes which meant we really got to enjoy our time. The atmosphere was perfect and we were lucky to have a round table (we don’t know what it is but we just love a round table they are more sociable that’s for sure).  We would highly recommend the afternoon tea in Waddeson Manod and it was definitely one of the highlights of our day.

We left Waddeson Manor at about 16:30PM and noticed the que for the buses was incredibly long, although they said the que goes down quickly we actually opted to walk back to the car, we had just eaten a lot of cake and decided we could do with the exercise. Waddeson Manor have created a path that is well lit but we must have taken a wrong turn and ended up walking along the road which actually turned out to be the better option. The path wasn’t muddy but it was incredibly slippery so although probably a more direct route it probably wouldn’t have saved us much time.

All in all it was a fab day out and we would definitely recommend a visit, if you are travelling a long way though we would suggest you definitely grab a bite to eat whilst you are there and take a walk through the gardens. We loved our day at Waddeson and it was the perfect way to kick start our month long festive fun.

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