The hotel: outside my room at Chewton Glen is a corridor
set-dressed with antique croquet mallets, catgut tennis rackets, mashies and
niblicks. Beyond it, there’s a drawing room with sumptuous floral sofas and
grand pianos, strafed by cool spring sunlight through the French windows.
The hotel has a gentlemen’s bar, wallpapered in burgundy suede, and a
hallway with nine pairs of spotless wellingtons (all green). The reception
team don’t wear stripy blazers and monocles, but it may only be a matter of
time.
Right from the off, you feel a sense of occasion here. Approached along a
regulation sweeping drive, Chewton Glen reclines beneath a very long horizon
— Palladian-style mansion at one end, porticoed health spa at the other.
It’s got a weatherboarded clock tower, topiary statues and wide acres of
delectably dewy lawns. Staff outnumber guests by almost two to one — I
suspect that they sprinkle on the dew by hand each morning.
Even outdoors, Chewton is primped and perfect: you feel that every wisp of
ivy, every “crumbling” folly, has been finessed into position. Indoors, the
hotel is like your unspeakably rich aunt — traditionally dressed,
consummately conservative, but never less than immaculately maintained. At
these prices, you’d expect nothing less.
So it’s old-fashioned, then? It is working the Jeeves
and Wooster shtick, certainly, but the facilities are bang up to date.
There’s a schizophrenic moment when you step out of the plus-fours and
flying-goggles era and into robe-and-slippers territory — the hotel spa is a
model of modish sophistication. It has a “grooming lounge”, a Roman-themed
hydrotherapy pool, complete with sub-aqua statues of classical nymphs, and
an outdoor whirlpool that Bertie’s Aunt Agatha wouldn’t approve of one bit.
Every hotel guest receives a bulletin inviting them to participate in assorted
types of bodily assault: perhaps an “upper-body sculpt with Ria”, or an “ab
attack with Stuart”. Alternatively, you can book a personal trainer and have
your torture tailor-made. The spa stuff doesn’t feel out of place, though,
because Chewton Glen’s atmosphere is much closer to country club than
country house: alongside the croquet, it offers a tennis centre (with
resident pro), a jogging course, a snooker room and a par-three golf course.
Top hole, as Gussie Fink-Nottle would say.
What about the rooms? Not sure how they’ve managed this, but
the bedrooms succeed in being at once chintzy and chic. Contemporary
country, I think they call it. There are 35 of them, plus 23 suites, mostly
done in tasteful clarets, olives and creams, and mostly vast. If you’re one
of those people who can’t stop tidying up after yourself in expensive hotel
rooms (perhaps it’s just me), Chewton will almost certainly cure you — its
sprawling spaces dare you to leave clothes, towels, newspapers and
inhibitions trailing in your wake.
My shower was as big as two bathtubs (presumably for people who like to shower
lying down), with a robe so heavy it could ground you for days. There’s a
Bang & Olufsen CD player that slides open by magic when you get within
three paces, and (smarter still) the in-room music library eschews David
Gray and Dido in favour of Johnny Cash and Bumble Bee Slim. Now that’s
class. There’s something inexpressibly decadent about listening to Big Bill
Broonzy sing Bricks in My Pillow, while spraying Molton Brown Air of Sleep
around your bedroom and slumping into post-dinner, bathrobe-based bliss.
What was for dinner? Duck foie gras with lentils and bacon
foam, followed by roast scallops with wild mushroom sauce. The head chef,
Luke Matthews, styles his food “classic French in a light and healthy
style”. Sounds like a contradiction, but, like the hotel itself, it
basically means taking country staples and making them all fresh and sunlit
and exuberant.
Breakfast in the conservatory restaurant also feels like an occasion. On
arrival, I was descended upon by a Swat team of morning-suited waiters —
maîtres d, e and f, perhaps. And it’s the only time I’ve eaten a £20
“continental breakfast” that succeeded in being worth the money.
“Why not start the day as you mean to go on,” said the menu, “with half a
bottle of Gosset?” Ignoring the implication that I’m a raving dipso, I
thought I just might.
And beyond the grounds? You’ll find the New Forest, a
quintessentially British landscape where girls called Olivia ride tiny
ponies through sun-dappled woodland on their way to doily-decked tearooms.
On cold days, the forest’s open moorlands are the ideal place to chill your
cheeks into rosy luminosity — you can defrost them over a hot toddy at the
Oak Inn, in Bank, or the Royal Oak, in Fritham.
If you fancy a more formal “visitor experience”, Beaulieu, with its second
world war spy exhibition and vintage-car museum, is only a dozen miles away.
Or, if you just want a sprinkle of salt air on top of your foie gras and
scallops, a 20-minute walk through the hotel grounds brings you out onto the
esplanade at Christchurch Bay. Keep going, westwards, beside the beach to
Mudeford Quay, stacked with lobster pots and whiffy with authentic sea-dog
atmosphere.
- Chewton Glen Hotel, Spa and Country Club (01425 275341, www.chewtonglen.com)
has doubles from £290, room-only; three-course dinner £62.50. Overnight
spa breaks, including dinner, unlimited use of the spa and two one-hour
treatments, start at £299pp. The hotel also offers midweek specials,
themed for gourmets, golfers and tennis players, from £269pp
