Leeds Castle Website Design

A castle like no other

A digital experience that reimagines Leeds Castle through the eyes of Lady Baillie, where every guest's journey begins long before they arrive.

Leeds Castle is one of Britain’s most iconic visitor attractions, but its story extends far beyond medieval history. The new brand positioned the castle around its remarkable twentieth-century custodian, Lady Olive Baillie, celebrating the glamour, elegance and spirit that transformed it into a destination unlike any other.

The website needed to become the digital expression of that story. Our challenge was to create an ecommerce experience that inspired visitors, simplified the booking journey and brought together the castle’s many attractions, events, accommodation and hospitality offers into one seamless platform.

The heartbeat
We didn’t design a tourism website for visitors, we designed it for ‘guests’. That simple shift in thinking changed everything. Every interaction was designed to feel less transactional and more like the beginning of a memorable visit, immersing people in the elegance and hospitality that defined Lady Baillie’s famous country house parties.

Art Deco influences, refined typography and rich photography created a digital experience that felt unmistakably Leeds Castle while moving away from the clichés of medieval tourism. Inspiration and usability were given equal importance, allowing guests to explore history, events, weddings, accommodation and experiences before effortlessly booking online through a carefully considered user journey.

Behind the scenes, a flexible UX and ecommerce platform brings together multiple booking systems into one cohesive experience, making it easier for visitors to plan every aspect of their visit while giving Leeds Castle a scalable digital foundation for future growth.

The impact
The tourism website design brought Leeds Castle’s new brand proposition to life through every interaction, helping redefine the attraction as ‘A Castle Like No Other‘.

By combining storytelling with intuitive UX, the platform creates a stronger emotional connection before visitors even arrive, while simplifying complex booking journeys across tickets, events, accommodation, dining and retail. The result is a digital experience that feels every bit as distinctive, elegant and memorable as the destination itself.

Services

Sector
Travel & Tourism

UX strategy

The strategy for the new website puts the user first and carefully leads to call-to-action. Thanks to the creation of user flows and journey mapping at the beginning of the project, we were able to create dynamic call-to-action adapted to each page to simplify online booking tickets on mobile and desktop, regardless of user need.

We didn’t view the audience as visitors but as guests. It changed the way we looked at the process and booking style of the platform. Whilst we didn’t want to ‘reinvent the wheel’ we certainly wanted the website to stand apart and treat its guests differently than any other castle.

UI design

The adaptation of Leeds Castle’s visual identity for digital format had to respect accessibility, so we worked closely with the Leeds Castle team and partner agencies. We created a UI design system that not only complemented the new visual identity but evolved it.

We used differing colour palettes to showcase the different sections such as weddings, to set it apart from the rest of the website. The pages are adorned in small sets of art deco brand elements and motifs to help create a distinctive look-and-feel for Leeds Castle, to bring the identity to life.

Technology insights

Overview

The evolution of Leed’s Castle’s website was conceived around the idea of centralising their many services and external systems for ticketing, events, dining, accommodation & golf around a central user experience. The solution included incorporating a fully integrated e-commerce solution (Woocommerce) for retail, experience, event and ticket booking.

Key integrations

Access Gamma CRM
Guestline
Open table
Woocommerce

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