History of Petwood House and Hotel

Petwood House (now The Petwood Hotel) is one of Woodhall Spa’s most distinctive Edwardian buildings, created at the height of the village’s “spa boom”. The house was commissioned in 1905 by Baroness Grace von Eckhardstein (Grace Maple), heiress to the Maples furniture fortune, who wanted a grand country retreat in her favourite woodland (“pet wood”).

Architecturally, the building is Grade II listed and is described by Historic England as 1905, extended 1910, with a “fanciful” half-timbered Tudor/Jacobean revival look, plain tiled roofs and prominent clustered brick chimneys—features that still define its silhouette today.

The estate’s gardens became as celebrated as the house. Early layouts are associated with William Goldring, and after Grace’s remarriage to Sir Archibald Weigall (1910), the gardens were redesigned with the influence of designer Harold Peto, helping create the formal Edwardian landscape still enjoyed now.

During World War I, Petwood served as a military convalescence hospital, with wards and even an operating theatre. In 1933 it transitioned into a hotel, and in World War II it was requisitioned and became an RAF Officers’ Mess, most famously linked with 617 Squadron – the “Dambusters” from 1942. That wartime heritage remains a key part of the hotel’s identity.

The Petwood Hotel – contact