Cliveden

Cliveden House
View looking north from the Ring in the Parterre showing Terrace Pavilion and Clock Tower to the left with Lower Terrace and Borghese Balustrade below
Cliveden House Location within Buckinghamshire Show map of Buckinghamshire Cliveden House Cliveden House (England) Show map of England
Hotel chain	Iconic Luxury Hotels
General information
Coordinates	51°33′29″N 0°41′18″W / 51.558168°N 0.688258°W / 51.558168; -0.688258
Owner	National Trust
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Charles Barry
Other information
Number of rooms	47 (including Spring Cottage)
Number of suites	15
Number of restaurants	2
Number of bars	1 (The Library Bar)
Facilities	Spa, Tennis, Gym, 376 acres (152 ha) of National Trust-Managed Grounds (including the Maze), Two Boats, Meeting Space
Website
Official website

Cliveden (pronounced /ˈklɪvdən/) is an English country house and estate in the care of the National Trust in Buckinghamshire, on the border with Berkshire. The Italianate mansion, also known as Cliveden House, crowns an outlying ridge of the Chiltern Hills close to the South Bucks villages of Burnham and Taplow. The main house sits 40 metres (130 ft) above the banks of the River Thames, and its grounds slope down to the river. There have been three houses on this site: the first, built in 1666, burned down in 1795 and the second house (1824) was also destroyed by fire, in 1849. The present Grade I listed house was built in 1851 by the architect Charles Barry for the 2nd Duke of Sutherland.

Cliveden has been the home to a Prince of Wales, two Dukes, an Earl, and finally the Viscounts Astor. As the home of Nancy Astor, wife of the 2nd Viscount Astor, Cliveden was the meeting place of the Cliveden Set of the 1920s and 1930s—a group of political intellectuals. Later, during the early 1960s, when it was the home of the 3rd Viscount Astor, it became the setting for key events of the notorious Profumo affair. After the Astor family stopped living there, by the 1970s, it was leased to Stanford University, which used it as an overseas campus. Today the house is leased to a company that runs it as a five-star hotel.

The 375-acre (152 ha) gardens and woodlands are open to the public, together with parts of the house on certain days. Cliveden was one of the National Trust's most popular pay-for-entry visitor attractions, hosting 524,807 visitors in 2019.