As the sun sets on Corsham’s high street, you might observe some feathery traffic on the pedestrianised pavement. Local peacocks roam beneath quaint bunting to perch on the ledges of historic Cotswold stone buildings. Their calls can be heard from a bedroom at Corsham House, the latest opening from The Beckford Group.
“Corsham is interesting because it has a vibrant high street. There’s a butcher, a bicycle shop, no vape shops, and more than one good pub,” says co-founder Dan Brod. “That is increasingly unusual.” Corsham House sits at the heart of the market town in a former Georgian bank. It’s the Beckford Group’s first all-day restaurant with rooms; the Wiltshire-based group owns two popular Bath restaurants – Beckford Canteen and Beckford Bottle Shop – and five pubs across the south west.
The project took intensive planning and more than three years to complete – period architecture is not always conducive to easy conversion. The building now hosts an 80-cover brasserie with counter dining, a courtyard terrace and a wine shop stocked with the team's favourites. Upstairs, no two of the 11 bedrooms (designed by co-founder Charlie Luxton and interior designer Natasha Hidvégi) are the same, with vintage dressers and armchairs, floral-patterned curtains and large windows.
As for the restaurant, what differentiates Corsham House is “a bit of an anti-small plates thing”, Brod says. “It’s our version of an English brasserie. We want it to be a place where you can have whatever you fancy, whenever you fancy it.”
Head chef James Harris transfers over from Bath’s Beckford Bottle Shop, which has received a Michelin Bib Gourmand every year since opening in 2018. “We’ve pared back the wine and charcuterie to focus on bigger plates – but still the same seasonality and drive for quality,” Harris says. The snacks include cheese curds with marmite mayo, pig’s head fritters with gooseberry jam and a Devonshire crab muffin. For mains there’s rump cap steak with decadently smooth mash and delicate stone bass with mussels, sweetcorn and tomato. The signature “Corsham chips” – thinly sliced potato stacks deep-fried and finished with house-made chicken salt – are proving so popular already that the kitchen is going through about 18 kilograms of potatoes a day.
Like all new openings, the team is still experimenting. “I’ve not had to change anything too much,” Harris says. And with an all-new team, some of whom are new to hospitality, “it’s an opportunity; it’s a learning kitchen. Everything’s still going to be delicious, but I’m not pushing everything to be too perfect. We’re just cooking”.
For Londoners, it's an easy escape: direct trains from Paddington reach Chippenham in just over an hour, with Corsham just a 10-minute taxi or short bus ride from the station. It’s also an easy 20-minute drive from Bath. The place is already proving popular with locals too, who repeatedly pop into the courtyard to sample the same breakfast guests enjoy included in their room rate: fresh juices, eggs and granola bowls, alongside pastries from beloved Bath bakery Landrace.
Development is set to continue; the team intends to build five more rooms, and to install solar-panel electricity. Brod plans to keep things accessible, with rooms reasonably priced. “Corsham is a very real place; not too pretentious. We like that about it.” As for the peacocks? “I don’t really know how we’ll manage them, we’re sort of figuring that bit out as we go.”
Corsham House
13 High Street, SN13 0ET
Hours:
Daily 8am–11pm