Our Story

James will tell you (and anyone who’ll listen) that he loves nature, but he hates camping. It’s a joke, but it’s also the truest thing about what we’ve built here.

Glasscombe was founded by James and Kate Nicholson, a husband-and-wife team with decades shaping hospitality experiences from Barcelona to Sonoma Valley, California before asking a quieter question: what would we actually want for ourselves?

The answer was this. A place where design doesn’t compete with the landscape, but gently disappears into it. Here, the lines between inside and outside blur until you’re not quite sure which side of the glass you’re on. 

We’ve always believed that the most considered spaces don’t announce themselves, they simply make you feel at ease without knowing exactly why. The weight of a good blanket. The way morning light moves across a room. Let nature take care of the rest.

We chose the Cotswolds because, after years in cities and the necessary noise of them, this landscape feels like a different kind of rest. It is unhurried. It’s uninterrupted. We wanted to build something that honors that with structures that open up and let you listen to the silence, materials that weather honestly or disappear altogether.

To us, luxury means experiencing something rare, and nothing feels more rare right now than genuine stillness. The open sky, cool earth, time that slows down enough to notice. Glasscombe is our attempt to hold that feeling of stillness long enough to share it. 

We hope you find your way here.

James and Kate