Wollaton Hall

You get a Grade I listed Elizabethan house on a hill in a 500-acre deer park, about 3 miles from Nottingham city centre, with a Great Hall that the venue says suits large conferences and a library suite for small meetings. You can take a single room for a seminar or a launch, or add the Formal Gardens and a marquee when the guest list outgrows the house. The house has also been the city’s Natural History Museum since 1926, the venue says, and the hall and park open to visitors daily, so plan your event around public opening.

Event spaces and capacities

The venue’s own 2026-27 brochure names six rooms in the house and the Camellia House, plus two outdoor marquee sites. Indoors, the largest published figures are 100 seated for dinner in the Great Hall and up to 150 for an evening reception across the Great Hall and the adjoining Salon. Outdoors, the Back Lawn and the Walled Garden each take a marquee or tepee for up to 1,000 guests, which the venue says depends on the supplier. No floor areas, theatre, classroom or cabaret figures are published, so ask for those before you plan a conference layout.

The same brochure gives seated ceremony numbers, which are the nearest guide to rows of chairs: Great Hall 100, Prospect Room 50, Camellia House 30, Lady’s Chamber 20 and Lord Middleton Suite 15. The Camellia House, built in 1823, is a Grade II listed cast-iron glasshouse in the Formal Gardens, which the venue describes as the oldest of its kind in Europe. The Prospect Room sits at the top of the house with views across the city. Capacities as published by the venue in its 2026-27 brochure, checked 5 November 2026.

Getting there and parking

Your delegates can drive in and park on site, though parking is charged. The venue takes payment through RingGo (location code 18914) or by card in its shops, cafés and the hall, and coach parking is £50. Blue Badge holders park free for up to four hours in every car park, including near the hall entrance. The venue gives no station or bus details and instead suggests planning public transport through the Nottingham Travel Centre or Traveline East Midlands, so send delegates a route with the joining instructions. The postcode is NG8 2AE.

Catering, AV and accommodation

You choose your caterer from the venue’s approved list, and the caterer brings food, drink, glassware, china, linen and serving staff. Hire fees do not include catering, and the brochure says the caterer pays the venue a 10% commission on its final bill. A coordinator can put you in touch with recommended suppliers. The venue publishes no in-house AV, so book screens and sound through your own supplier. There are no bedrooms on site; the accessibility page points to Visit Nottinghamshire for accessible places to stay. For scale, the published wedding rates run from £4,000 for a ceremony and drinks package on Monday to Thursday to £7,500 for a full day on Friday to Sunday, and any marquee event carries a £10,000 Formal Garden ground hire fee before the marquee itself. Corporate rates are not published.

On access, the venue says wheelchair users can enter the main hall at the front and rear, lifts serve the gallery floors, and a Changing Places toilet is in the courtyard. The front lift takes 200kg in total, and heavier wheelchairs use the West Entrance. Induction loops are fitted at each reception point. Some parts of the house have steps.

What to ask before you book

• Theatre, classroom and cabaret numbers for the Great Hall and Lord Middleton Suite, since only wedding figures are published.
• How guests with limited mobility reach the Prospect Room, given that the venue says its tour route there climbs 300 steps on a winding staircase.
• Whether the Formal Gardens and Camellia House are open on your date; they close from 26 October 2026 to 15 January for the Wollaton Lights trail.
• Your corporate hire rate, and whether the caterer’s 10% commission is passed on in the catering quote.
• How many cars you can expect to park, whether you can prepay delegate parking, and whether a park event that day brings event parking charges.
• Advance permission for any commercial photography or filming, which the venue requires, and its ban on drones.

Related on Events Review

• Conference venues in Nottingham
• Historic event venues
• Unusual event venues
• Nottingham Castle, which shares a Rover Pass with Wollaton Hall
• Albert Hall Conference Centre
• East Midlands Conference Centre
• Trent Bridge
• Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
• Turn venue accessibility claims into a usable event plan
• Choose the venue around the event, not the headline capacity

Sources: Wollaton Hall hire page, 2026-27 brochure, weddings page, visit and parking page, accessibility page and deer park and gardens page, checked 5 November 2026.