Holiday homes with Downton Abbey style (and service)

For Downton Abbey fans with drawing room envy, or who yearn for a snooker room, Cumbrian Cottages has some grand country houses where you can live like Lord Grantham, even if it is only for a weekend.

In Windermere, Oakland Hall is a Victorian gentlemen’s residence with gothic windows among a host of original features that have been sympathetically restored.  

There is a galleried dining room complete with deers’ antler candelabra and a vast drawing room with leather chesterfields as well as four beautiful bedrooms to sleep up to 10.

The manager of the Hall can, at extra cost, put guests in touch with a chef for a special dinner party, or organise anything from flower arrangements to picnic hampers for Lakeland expeditions.  

All that is extra of course, as this is a self-catering ‘cottage’ with three nights’ rental starting from £1150.

A few miles away, at Bowness on Windermere, Beech Manor offers a lordly lifestyle to visitors.  The snooker room has its own bar, and other features include an elegant entrance hall, impressive dining room, and two large lounges as well as superb lake views. 

There are five acres of woodland to explore, direct lake access with its own pier – and a helicopter landing pad. 

Guests need to bring their own ‘staff’ to Beech Manor, but with six bedrooms, the property sleeps up to 12 so there’s plenty of room.  Three nights’ rental is from £2100.

These, and other imposing country houses, the largest of which can sleep up to 18 people, can all be booked through Cumbrian Cottages at cumbrian-cottages.co.uk.