It’s a kind of magic…. In the little medieval town of Battle in the heart of East Sussex you will find The Pilgrims Rest. Nearly 600 years old, this beautiful old Wealden Hall house is full of rustic charm and historic soul - a unique and truly magical wedding venue. As well as being a stunning building with its medieval vaulted Great Hall, The Pilgrims Rest boasts three working inglenook fireplaces, ancient beams, linenfold doors and oak floors. With all the cost advantages of a dry hire venue (with no fixed suppliers, no corkage charges and the choice to have your own bar) The Pilgrims Rest is as far removed from “dry” as you could possibly want; designed and furnished to need little extra decoration and a member of our wedding team available for advice and a little hand holding. In the morning you can both get ready in the stunning Fitzherbert and The Bryant Rooms - two beautifully designed and furnished changing rooms. The Bryant Room also has a panelled sitting room which is perfect for pre-wedding photographs. The Great Hall - furnished with benches topped with a choice of furs or boho rugs for the ceremony. Lanterns and safety church candles line the aisle. You can say your “I do’s” with the fire burning in the huge inglenook. After your meal the benches are cleared making way for dancing. The Dining Room with its wide, lime washed trestle tables - perfect for en-famille dining with Chivari chairs comes with pewter candlesticks (with real candles), vintage decanters and wine buckets and has a second inglenook fire to keep your guests cosy. The rustic Webster Bar complete with open fire, pea-lights and hops has champagne baths, a drinks fridge and drinks dispensers for Pimms or fresh lemonade. It goes without saying that there is plenty of wood for all three fires. At The Pilgrims Rest we hope to make a stunning wedding possible without too much hassle and expense. With this in mind we seasonally decorate the building (which can be used or stored away if you prefer), designing a backdrop for couples to add their own finishing touches, helping create a beautiful wedding without spending a fortune. Best of all we do not charge corkage and have no fixed suppliers, but a book of tried, tested and trusted suppliers if you need help. At The Pilgrims Rest we offer the choice to have your wedding just how you want it - with a little added dusting of magic! If you would like to make an appointment to meet one of The Pilgrims Rest team then please email venue@pilgrimsrestbattle.co.uk or call us on 07552873448. Photo by Katie Rogers Photography Photo Credit: Georgina Piper Weddings Dream Team (noun): The best possible combination of people for a particular activity. Nearly 5 years ago I bit the bullet and realised my long term dream of transforming the Pilgrims Rest into a wedding venue. After many weeks of scrubbing, painting, and furnishing, Amy and I stood at the front door welcoming friends, family and suppliers to our launch party. At the time it was a very different concept to other venues. We didn’t want to hold on to the catering and the bar nor have fixed suppliers. Five years on we have stayed true to our roots but have continued to add to the venue to make it as easy and as affordable as possible to get married at The Pilgrims Rest. As wedding bookings came flooding in we realised quickly that the team needed to grow. Amy Lou joined a few months later with Anita, Waverley, Kate, and more recently Elle, making up a team of six - all with different skills but with a united goal - to ensure our couples have a wedding day to remember. I can confidently say that we really do have the very best possible combination of people who run and care for our stunning wedding venue. Being confident is one thing but, as they say, the proof really is in the pudding. Recently The Pilgrims Rest was voted the best wedding venue in Sussex (East and West) from more than 320 wedding venues across both counties. Unknowingly nominated by a couple who had married at venue, we were chuffed to bits when we discovered how many more couples had voted for us and completely over the moon to hear we had won! Winning an award is incredible but what makes me swell with pride is reading the emails and letters from brides and grooms, full of praise for the venue but more importantly for our team who work with endless enthusiasm and dedication on each and every wedding day. Finding the perfect combination of a beautiful venue with a friendly and approachable team to help guide you up the aisle isn’t an easy task. When you find your dream wedding venue be sure there is a dream wedding team to go with it. Here are some recent kind words from some of our happy couples: “Amazing staff, who are great communicators and went above and beyond our expectations on every level, full of great ideas , not shy telling us if something won’t work, you may not want to hear this, but it’s worth listening as they are usually right ! If I was ever to be asked to recommend a venue, this would be it . If you have to ask yourself how can I spruce this venue up to my taste , it’s the wrong venue, it works so well because of how well it’s set up and pre-decorated.” ****** “This place and team are all truly magical! We held our wedding at The Pilgrims Rest on the 24th June 2021. We had it booked since 2018 (we may hold the record for their longest booking!), but unfortunately had to postpone it twice, due to restrictions. We are so glad we chose The Pilgrims Rest as our place of marriage and to celebrate our wedding. We knew it was the right place from the start. We were looked after so well by the whole team over the years of planning. They were fantastic at communicating, being supportive, understanding and reassuring. The place itself just met everything we envisaged for our day. It provides everything you could need, with lots of special touches, whilst allowing you to put your own stamp on the day. We feel so lucky to be amongst the couples who have chosen to be married here. We need to find a reason or occasion to book with them again, perhaps a vow renewal in the future!?” ****** “Had our wedding there finally after two Covid postponements and it truly was such a lovely place that has left us with such magical and memorable experience. The lasses who run it are superb and soo helpful and accommodating. Sad that I cannot give it another star!” ****** “I can't begin to tell you how perfect this place is. It's honestly where I had the happiest day of my life. The staff are amazing, the venue is perfect and... Well, just go look for yourselves. Thank you everyone at Pilgrims rest. I feel like the luckiest man on the planet.” The Pilgrims Rest is a pretty magical place to tie the knot. Not only an extraordinary 600 year old building but one with an extraordinary wedding team. If you would like more information or speak to a member of the team please call ...or email.... We look forward to meeting you! Photo credit: Hayley Rose Photography
Many years ago I was given a piece of advice by my neighbour; “Waste”, she said, opening her kitchen bin and pretended to scrape a plate, “Not waist”, pointing to her own (rather svelte) waistline. I have often thought of this elegant old lady as I start yet another Monday morning diet and, although she made perfect sense, from an environmental point of view her’s isn’t really the best advice.
Reducing the amount of waste we produce seems like a relatively recent phenomenon, but as baby boomers and those, like me, born in the sixties will tell you wastage was something that didn’t exist in our childhood homes. My mother, who’s own childhood was dominated by the war and post war rationing, couldn’t bear to see anything wasted. As a result, my siblings and squeezed the living daylights out of toothpaste tubes, carefully put lids back on pens so they didn’t dry out and never, ever left food on our plates (clearly Mum and my neighbour didn’t sing from the same hymn sheet on this point!) Almost nothing was thrown away in our house; Dad’s old vests became polishing cloths; jam jars cleaned and reused for homemade marmalade; empty baked bean cans found themselves strung over the vegetable patch to keep away the birds and wrapping paper had its sellotape removed to be reused for future birthdays, or to cover school books. Every garden had a compost heap; empty glass bottles were returned to shops in exchange for cash and shopping baskets or tartan trolleys accompanied many a shopper on their regular trips to buy groceries. My parents’ generation had experienced so many years of rationing and making do, that reusing was part of everybody’s DNA. Simply because a piece of china had been dropped into tiny pieces didn’t mean it ended up in the bin and we would often help Mum as she painstakingly glued things back together. Many a dippy egg were served in an egg cup that closely resembled crazy paving! Although we didn’t realise it at the time, we were all busy recycling without thinking - it was a natural part of our everyday lives. Thankfully now, after decades of excessive landfilling, recycling and reusing has once more become part of our daily routines. Little by little, we are all doing our bit to help preserve our planet for future generations, so it comes as no surprise that many couples planning their weddings are keeping their day as eco-friendly as possible. Weddings produce literally tonnes of waste in food, decorations and flowers, (and forgotten wedding favours) every year. So by finding ways to reduce this will further help protect our planet - but how? Firstly, look long and hard at your guest list and separate the weeds from the grass and decide who you really want to share your day with. Small weddings have gained rapid popularity in the last year. Couples who had to cut their lists have found that now they can increase them that they don’t want to anymore. They love the idea of having their nearest and dearest and from an eco-friendly point of view this is the biggest step to creating a more sustainable wedding. Quite simply, less guests equals less waste - a decision that is both great for the environment but also your pocket. Secondly, find the right venue. It is easy to forget just how much is required to make a wedding venue sing, so choosing one that needs little decoration is key. Empty, cavernous barns or woodland glades can require vast amounts of decorating and will ultimately result in mounds of wilting flowers and foliage to dispose of the following day. Thirdly, suss out your suppliers. If you love flowers then sourcing seasonal ones from local cutting gardens is the way to go rather than buying imported ones so ensure your green choices are as “green” as possible. In East Sussex we are very lucky to have some wonderful cutting gardens owned by some excellent florists, some of who will deliver buckets of freshly cut flowers you can arrange yourselves. In the autumn and winter months you can get creative with twigs and seasonal foliage; collecting oak leaves as they turn orange and fall and pinecones are a sustainable and effective way to decorate weddings later in the year. Finally, catering. When it comes to deciding what catering you should have for your wedding you might find yourselves struggling with too many choices. Narrow it down to local caterers to avoid unnecessary travel requirements. Ask them where they buy their ingredients from and choose a menu that is locally sourced and seasonal - a good choice and also a tasty one! Without doubt, the biggest wastage at a wedding is left over food. To achieve a fabulous looking buffet requires more food than you can possibly eat if you want to ensure it looks tempting but this ultimately means wastage. I am pretty sure none of us would want to be the last guest served at a portion controlled buffet - finding yourself staring at a solitary piece of quiche on a huge platter. By having your food plated in the kitchen, and served at the table, ensures very little, if any, wastage and avoid more than one choice unless there are dietary requirements. A question often raised is just how many times your guests need, and expect, to be fed? In reality daytime guests are still pretty full when the evening buffet is served. It is normally just the evening guests who are hungry, so by keeping your wedding smaller, the evening buffet and all the associate waste such as disposable plates and napkins will vanish into thin air - along with the evening guest list! Instead, feed your nearest and dearest once, but feed them well. There is no doubt about it, if you want your reception to kick off with a bang, you need plenty to drink and plenty to eat and this is where canapés come into their own. Call me old fashioned, but who doesn’t love these little mouthfuls of scrumptiousness to go alongside your glass of bubbly? By choosing the right canapés your wastage should be as tiny as they are. For me, old favourites are unbeatable - sticky honey and mustard chipolatas and rare roast beef and horseradish Yorkshire puds are rarely (excuse the pun) left sadly on a tray going round (and round) a drinks reception. This route doesn’t need to break the bank as you can op to sit down to your main course and not skip the starter. By this point your guests will have had a few drinks, delicious nibbles, plenty of chat and lots of laughter. They will be happy, you will be happy and, even better, the environment will be happy - so what’s not to love? The Pilgrims Rest is a stunning 600 year old wedding venue full of rustic charm and historic soul. Perfect for small weddings and those a little larger - needing little, if any decoration - but still one you can make your own. If you would like to speak to a member of our wedding team please call 07552873448. Photo credit: Sarah Williams Photography |
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