As Wilderness festival gets underway, hostess Lady Rotherwick shares her tips for a stylish weekend in the country with Tim Hughes

The prospect of throwing open the curtains to find thousands of hedonistic festival-goers roaming around one’s garden is a prospect which would fill most people with dread.

But Lady Rotherwick is not most people, and Cornbury Park is not an average home.

A cool, fun-loving music fan, she has allowed the grounds of her 17th-century stately home to be used for festivals for 11 years — first for the eponymous Cornbury Festival, and now, for the fourth year, the hip and happening Wilderness, which officially gets under way tomorrow.

Revellers will today start pitching their tents among Cornbury’s rolling, wooded acres for the start of the three-day celebration of music, theatre, food and nature, which will attract more than 22,000 people to this impossibly scenic spot in the heart of the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. And no one is looking forward to it more than Her Ladyship.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” she says with genuine excitement. “Even for someone like me, who has followed this festival from the beginning, the combination of things being planned this year is unbelievable.

“There is so much happening. The only disappointment would be getting to the end, having missed stuff you wished you’d done.”

The event is organised by the team behind the cult Secret Garden Party and Lovebox events and is unlike any other music festival. While being a cut above its rowdier competitors, it remains neither stuffy, with no roped-off VIP areas, nor overly commercial.

And while the line-up is impressive, boasting headline sets by London Grammar, electro-pop band Metronomy and easy-listening legend Burt Bacharach, neither is it all about the music. Indeed, says Lady Rotherwick, one can spend a fabulous weekend without seeing a single band.

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“Between the main acts at other festivals there is often nothing to do,” she says. “Here there’s something around every corner with no possibility of being bored. Even if you miss every main act you’ll still find something amazing to do.”

That includes sets by Jessie Ware, singer-songwriters Joan as Policewoman and Jack Savoretti and indie-pop duo Slow Club. Then there are fire processions, parades, late-night masked balls and high-wire acrobatic displays. Bon viveurs can indulge themselves in banquets hosted by Russell Norman, Simon Rogan and Angela Hartnett, join a Wilderness cookery school or sip Champagne in an elegant Victorian-style Orangerie run by chef and restaurateur Mark Hix.

More self-improving pursuits come courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Shakespeare’s Globe, Oxford Shakespeare Company, the British Humanist Association, Royal Observatory Greenwich, and the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. The curious can also join workshops, talks and debates, food and natural medicine foraging expeditions, tai chi, meditation and capoeira sessions or learn such traditional country pursuits as fly fishing, horse riding and wild swimming.

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Heady stuff: Fancy dress at Wilderness

There is even a cricket match – and an Oxford v Cambridge boat race on the lakes.

Children are equally well catered for, and if one needs to recuperate, there’s always the lakeside spa, sunset yoga classes, pilates and the promise of a good massage.

“It’s pure magic,” smiles Lady Rotherwick. “As soon as you set foot on site you are transported to another world. There’s an extraordinarily eclectic mix.

“There’s a quirkiness and charm, and the people who put it on are the nicest team you can possibly imagine.”

And, she insists, her family have become Wilderness’s biggest fans — particularly children Gus, 13, and Clemmie, eight.

“They have grown up with it,” she says. “They love exploring and particularly enjoy getting involved in the green craft workshops.

“It’s safe and wholesome, but the key thing about Wilderness, from a parent’s perspective, is that they are not constantly coming to you asking for money. Apart from the odd ice cream, it’s all free.”

And how does the family feel about the other 22,000 revellers?

“It’s such a privilege to live here, and we enjoy sharing it,” she answers. “It would be wrong to live somewhere this beautiful and keep it all to yourself. I’m always happiest when other people are enjoying it too — and, for me, that’s what Wilderness is all about.”

Wilderness
Cornbury Park, Charlbury
Tomorrow to Sunday
Tickets £143.50 wildernessfestival.com