The Swan Tarporley

The 16th century Swan has been welcoming guests through its doors for over 400 years, and was once a convenient resting place for those travelling the 200 miles from London to Chester. Today, our comfortable rooms and welcoming bar and dining areas mean that The Swan continues to be a haven for visitors from far and wide. A regular winner of the Best Kept Village award, Tarporley appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. Back then, Tarporley was home to just eight households, but today is one of the largest villages in the heart of the Cheshire countryside, with antique, curio, craft and fashion shops lining its streets. Some of The Swan’s most historic features are located in its Hunt Room, home to the Tarporley Hunt Club. Founded in 1762, it is the oldest in England. The club historically met twice annually at The Swan, with each meeting lasting seven days and the hunting taking place largely within the nearby Delamere Forest. In the founding set of rules, members were required to drink “three collar bumpers” after both dinner and supper, and, in the event of marriage, to present each club member with a pair of buckskin breeches. The Tarporley Hunt Club still meet once a year today, a quarter of a millennium after Obidiah Lane went hare coarsing with his chums and decided, after much merriment at the Swan, this should happen every year; “We shall meet for the purposes of general conviviality” he declared!