The Credentials:
A country house hotel and spa set in 130 acres of rolling Hampshire countryside. A member of the Relais & Châteaux group, it has been voted ‘Best Hotel for Service in the UK’ and one of the ‘World’s Best Hotels’ by Conde Nast Traveller.
Primarily a spa hotel, Chewton Glen has multiple hydrotherapy pools and offers a wide range of spa treatments.
Dine:
The food was good, not incredible, but tasty and inventive. I tried the seven course tasting menu – starting with fresh Dorset crab, then duck liver, excellent sea trout, smoked loin of veal with pickled sunflower. The fruit bread was delicious; soft yet crispy, followed by raspberry gazpacho and roast red pepper, a combination which, surprisingly, worked. I’m not a pudding person, but managed to find space for the iced honeycomb parfait and chocolate mousse, with honeycomb from the hotel’s own hives. My friend had a tuna tartare she described as ‘too fishy’, and a lamb tagine described as ‘heavy-handed with the harissa’. Although my compatriot left most of her dinner we both had a very decent Caesar salad in the drawing room for lunch the following day. A whole breast sat atop a bed of crisp romaine lettuce, croutons, Parmesan and Caesar sauce.
Head Chefs Luke Matthews and Andrew Du Bourg obviously enjoy making the most of the hotel’s one-acre kitchen garden; the ingredients are fresh and local, the plates healthy yet filling.
Sleep:
The newer treehouses offer the ultimate in romantic seclusion. Nestling in the forest canopy, each luxurious Hideaway Suite has a private outdoor hot tub, while the Loft Suite has a secret galleried bunk for children. Lying in bed, you can look out across the glass-sided balcony to the ancient trees surrounding you. For peace and tranquillity, the treehouses are perfect, and for the ultimate relaxing experience, book a soothing spa treatment in your own treehouse. Each treehouse has two suites; book both for the real Crusoe experience. Enjoy total peace and seclusion and make use of their pulley system for staff to deliver your meals from the ground. You needn’t interact with a soul if the feeling so takes you.
We stayed in the more traditional Main House, our room was in many ways even more pleasant. We had a large separate sitting room area, two beds, and our own private patio. The bathroom was large and attractive, but more on that later.
Who Goes There?:
There were a surprising amount of middle-management types, massage oil the corporate glue holding balding bros together. There were mothers and daughters, girlfriends in groups, and families. It was all rather wholesome. The clientele were sturdy middle-class stock, not hugely glam, but civilised.
Out & About:
Chewton Glen is just five minutes from the coast, there are also walking, jogging and biking trails within the hotel’s 130 acre grounds. They offer golf and tennis courts, a croquet lawn, clay pigeon shooting, and falconry. Nearby you can also go horseriding, sailing, powerboating, fishing or kayaking.
The Worst Thing:
Chewton Glen feels very much like a work in progress – parts are magnificent, other areas are tired. The pools are not as beautiful as they could be, and the outdoor hot-tub was surrounded by peeling paint and felt dated. As do parts of the interiors, but then the large drawing room with huge inviting sofas and grand piano was faultless.
My only other gripe is that the cold tap on our bath didn’t work; particularly unfortunate as we were in a rush to check out and catch our departing train. I decided to improvise and fill a champagne bucket with cold water from the shower, but slipped and fell smack bang on my bottom on the bathroom floor. Twice! I have no idea how that floor was so slippery, but I had mottled, black bruises for weeks.
The Best Thing:
Overall we had a great time. Chewton Glen has large, tranquil grounds and I loved sitting in the drawing room, reading the Sunday supplement with a delicious Caesar salad and endless glass bottles of Coke. There’s a relaxing family feel to the place, there was at once an octogenarian enjoying the piano and small children squealing with delight through the window.
The treehouses were all fully-booked when we visited, but I imagine they might offer a very different experience. Seclusion and luxury deep in the forest both sounds and looked incredible. A private hot tub in the trees would have been the clincher.
There were very interesting carved wooden armchairs hanging from tall trees, and a general feeling of space and timelessness, not unlike A. A Milne’s 100-acre wood.
