Two Years of HeritageXplore… and We’re Just Getting Started
It's funny to think that this time last year, we hadn't yet hosted a single supper club, staged a comedy night, or placed an artist inside one of Britain's most remarkable estates. A lot can happen in twelve months.
But before we get into any of that - a confession. Year Two has taught us something we perhaps should have known already: that people are seeking experiences and genuine connection more than ever. The appetite is for being in these places - for laughter under candlelight, for the conversation that starts over dinner and ends on a late train back to London, for the feeling of being genuinely welcomed somewhere awe-inspiringly beautiful, and for connecting with likeminded people. Once we understood that clearly, everything else followed.
It started with the core events series. Our Candlelit Comedy Nights have turned out to be one of the genuine delights of the year (so far) - always atmospheric, and always surprising. We've hosted them underground, in consecrated chapels, in a Venetian drawing room, in a barn… Next up, we’ll be laughing the night away amongst the award-winning gardens at Coughton Court. You could say that the beautiful if unconventional locations are half the joke, and entirely the point. Whether you are a dedicated heritage enthusiast, or an 8 out of 10 Cats fan - we can guarantee you will have a fun evening.
Then there was the Valentine’s Day Supper Club at Kelvedon Hall - sold out within twenty minutes, and so well-loved that the group, apparently unwilling to let the evening end, collectively boarded a train to continue their nights in London together. The next supper will be coming in October - and we look forward to sharing more on this soon.
These evenings told us something important: when you put the right people inside the right house, something happens that couldn't happen anywhere else. We filed that away, and it became the foundation of everything we built next.
Our house network has continued to grow, welcoming extraordinary new properties into the HeritageXplore family - each one independently owned, each one alive with its own story.
The Book Club has gone from strength to strength. Hugo Vickers brought Gladys Deacon - the 9th Duchess of Marlborough - to life in a way that lingered long after the session ended. Lady Anne Glenconner, with characteristic warmth and wit, reminded us that the best stories are almost always the ones people lived themselves. More sessions, and more guests, are on the way.
We launched our Partners Network this year, bringing together brands and organisations that share our values - and opening up a new layer of privilege for Club members, from priority access and member pricing at upcoming events like Treasure House Fair, to a growing collection of adjacent experiences that feel genuinely in the spirit of what we're doing.
Our HeritageXplore Luxe tours have been in a league of their own. The first Ducal Tour set a standard we were a little nervous about matching. The second - currently underway as we write this - suggests we had nothing to worry about. Guests have been chauffeured in INEOS Grenadiers, greeted as personal guests of the houses rather than visitors, treated to private music performances and black-tie dinners in rooms that rarely see dinner guests. But the part that stays with guests isn't the details - it's the feeling of being somewhere genuinely extraordinary, welcomed as a guest rather than a visitor. More to come when the dust settles.
One of the things we're most proud of over the past year is our Artist in Residence programme, developed in partnership with the Dot Project. The idea at its heart is a simple and rather old one: that great houses have always been patrons of the arts, and that reinstating that relationship matters in the 21st Century.
Towards the end of 2025, Nick Jensen went to Belvoir, Jack Penny to Elveden Hall, Heath and Tais Rose Wae to Kelvedon, and Sebastian Espejo to Drumlanrig Castle. Each artist, each house, each response entirely its own. Right now, Dominic McHenry is in residence at Eastnor Castle - and the work emerging from that partnership is something we're very much looking forward to showing you.
And then, the thing that all of the above made inevitable: HeritageXplore Club.
If the events showed us what people were hungry for, the Club is our answer to it - a membership built around Britain's independently owned historic houses, at a price (£20 a year) that we hope makes joining feel unreasonable not to do. Remarkable stays up and down the country. Experiences you won't find anywhere else. The chance to ask extraordinary people your own questions in 'In Conversation With'. Partner privileges for members to enjoy. And always, underneath all of it, the same purpose: to bring you closer to independent heritage - to the houses, to the people who care for them, and to a way of engaging with Britain's history that feels alive and kicking.
The Club is growing, month on month. We'd love you to be part of it.
It has been an inspiring second year, and we are enormously grateful to everyone who has joined us for it - the members, the houses, the artists, the partners, and the people who come to supper clubs and stay for the last train.
Year Three starts now. We can't wait to see what it holds.
- The HeritageXplore Team
