Historic Somerset venue to close its doors to public
A historic Somerset venue which is used to hold corporate events and weddings is to close its doors to the public in September.
Dillington House in Ilminster announced the decision after Somerset County Council decided to activate a break clause in the lease of the 16th century manor house.
The news has been confirmed on the venue’s website.
The county council has leased the Grade 2 listed country house since September 1966 – initially for adult and community education events.
More recently it has been used as a venue for meetings and conferences and various events such as weddings.
A statement said: “Operations in the building currently run at a substantial loss and this decision will enable public monies and resources to be focused on the council’s statutory duties such as children’s and adult social care.
“Somerset County Council adjusted the terms of its lease so it could continue running its activities until the end of September 2023, avoiding disruption to academic courses run by Somerset Centre for Integrated Learning and also enabling it to honour the majority of its existing bookings at Dillington – including weddings booked throughout 2023.
“We are determined to ensure that customers visiting Dillington throughout 2023 experience the same high quality of service that they would have received in previous years.”
The council said staff will be supported in finding alternative employment, especially within the council where appropriate, to keep redundancies to a minimum.
The main house and surrounding buildings will be handed back to the landlords, who own the surrounding Dillington Estate in the autumn.
The Shindig guitar festival will still take place at Dillington at the end of May as planned.
