Mowat & Company’s visitor centre at the Hampshire vineyard embodies rustic sophistication, featuring a green oak barn and bespoke timber furnishings and accessories. Set within the rolling landscape of the South Downs national park, it signals the start of a new era of wine tourism at the country’s first commercial vineyard, the birthplace of English wine.
The Hambledon visitor centre is organised around a central courtyard, with a terrace offering views of the surrounding vines. A hospitality barn sits on top of wine cellars and a bottling area set into the sloping terrain. Housing a 60-cover restaurant, bar, private event spaces, tasting rooms and shop, this is made from green oak, which has a rough, agricultural quality in keeping with its viticultural setting. The furniture inside, meanwhile, is made from a more refined palette of ash and walnut.
Wine tasting is central to the visitor offering, and a new bespoke 16-seater tasting table was designed by Mowat & Company and crafted by Hampshire furnituremaker Joss Stoddart. Yorkshire walnut and Sussex sycamore were supplied by Sykes Timber and Woodland Heritage, a charity that champions the sustainable productive use of UK woodland.
A terracotta-tiled central bar forms a focal point, and from the bar a timber staircase leads down to thea new shop that stocks local produce alongside Hambledon wines. There, bespoke retail gondola units were designed for individual Hambledon wines. A culinary garden, designed by Emily Erlam Studio, provides a fully accessible route to the restaurant, and supplies fresh herbs and vegetables for the restaurant.
Since 2023 Hambledon has been under the joint ownership of two family businesses, Berry Bros & Rudd and the Symington Family Estates. The estate has been offering wine tours and seasonal pop-up restaurants for some time, but the new owners wanted to expand their offering for wine tourists by creating a new visitor destination. When they took over they inherited an unfinished building in need of reinvigoration and a change in direction, and Mowat & Company was commissioned to deliver the new visitor centre.
Project credits
Location East St, Hambledon, Waterlooville, Hampshire PO7 4RY
GIA 3085m2
Architect Mowat & Company
Client Hambledon Wineries Ltd.
PM and QS Stockdale
Structural engineer Andrew Waring Associates
M&E engineer OR Consulting Engineers
CDM Valhorn Consult
Fire engineer Jensen Hughes
Main contractor EC1 Build
Lighting designers DPA Lighting Consultants (Phase 1), LAPD (Phase 2)
Building control Stroma Building Control (Phase 1), Assent (Phase 2)
Interior designer Mowat & Company
Landscape architect Emily Erlam Studio
Furniture maker Joss Stoddard
Photography Ellie Walpole
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