England’s Luxurious Rural Hotels – The Epitome of Pampered Country Life

There’s no location like the stately homes of England for a deliciously decadent taste of country life as it was in the pampered days of yore. Thankfully so several have been turned into luxurious hotels by now that you can savor the feeling even if you are not to the manor born.

Here’s a trio of super-stars where the picturesque settings and solicitous care are challenging to beat – which includes a lesser-known locate with a 200-year-old Canadian connection and surprisingly inexpensive prices.

They are all within straightforward touring distance of every other in the scenic southeast, but all delightfully different in their soothingly quiet way.

BEAUPORT PARK HOTEL

Close to Hastings, East Sussex

One particular doesn’t expect to discover a stately English property named soon after a remote village in Canada in 1763.

But Beauport Park in Sussex was known as soon after Quebec’s Beauport, instead of the far more usual other way around, by Gen. James Murray. He fell in love with the beguiling pioneer settlement when he was Governor of Quebec and later Governor of Canada, and wanted one thing to remind him of it soon after he returned to his house in England.

Stroll through the 33 acres of private woodland surrounding the handsome Georgian manor that is now Beauport Park Hotel, and you will know how it ought to have felt when Murray lived there – except that he owned two,000 acres then.

The original mansion was swept by fire in the 1920s, but restored in practically identical style. And except for a thoroughly modern swimming pool, the formal gardens exactly where you can loll the day away when the weather co-operates are just as they had been too.

You can unwind by a roaring log fire in the elegant lounge on cooler days. Or putter round the placing green, play tennis, golf or squash or join the horsey set for a brisk trot along quiet country lanes.

It need to be admitted that the food served in the romantic dining area overlooking the statue-studded Italianate terrace is not up to the haute cuisine peaks that have won the other two hotels in this trio their clusters of stars and mentions in so many Ideal Restaurants of the Globe lists. But it is remarkably excellent by most country hotel standards – they dote on flambes and prepare them with loving flourish.

Their prices are not up to the high standards of the other two either. It is about $ 96 a night for two in a typical bedroom, which includes such nice touches as hair dryers, trouser press and tea-makers along with the usual contemporary conveniences up to $ 124 for a suite with a four-poster bed.

Beauport Park is halfway between the twin-named towns of Battle and Hastings (close by the website of the Battle of Hastings). If you are not driving it is easier to come across a cab for the five-kilometer drive from busier Hastings. But if you happen to be going on by train when you leave, get the hotel to arrange for a cab to Battle – it’s a shame to miss the quaint old railway station in a converted church there.

CHEWTON GLEN HOTEL

Near New Milton, Hampshire

You cannot say the nice folks who run the Chewton Glen Hotel don’t do almost everything they can to make life easy for you.

They know several of their jet-set guests choose up a drive-yourself auto when they arrive at the airport, to go to Chewton Glen. They also know how tiring unfamiliar roads can be after a lengthy flight. So they thoughtfully suggest you have your drive-your self automobile delivered directly to the hotel “to await your arrival,” and they’ll send their chauffeur-driven Jaguar to meet you at the airport and whisk you to their sumptuous Hampshire hideaway bordering the New Forest “so you can full your journey in calm and comfort.”

It expenses $ 290 from Gatwick, $ 250 from Heathrow. But it does mean you arrive in style as well as calm comfort.

We didn’t go that far, but we did take the Jag and its solicitous chauffeur back to the New Milton train station, a few minutes away. That only costs $ 8, a lot more than double what our taxi had charged to go there, but a little price to spend for such a classy feeling.

Every little thing about Chewton Glen reeks of class, from the moment you enter the lengthy winding driveway leading to the imposing Georgian manor that utilized to be the property of 19th-century novelist Captain Marryat – all the rooms are named following characters in Mr. Midshipman Easy and his other classics.

The restaurant is the Marryat Space, and the food is as spectacular as the view across the manicured croquet lawns down to the Glen. Table d’hote lunches are the greatest buys, running from $ 24 to $ 30 and offering such delicacies as Scotch salmon adorned with caviar, Dover sole to dream on, and a masterly manifestation of creme brulee on black currant cassis.

Should you tire of the Marryat Room’s food, unlikely as that appears, the hotel has been known to have their guests helicoptered to dine at other privately-owned hotels in the Prestige group.

It is $ 192 and up per night for two to stay in one particular of their 33 tastefully modernized bedrooms, $ 384 and up for one of 11 super-luxe suites. But that includes a Continental breakfast and such additional touches as a glass of sherry to greet you on arrival, and bidets in most of the bathrooms.

GRAVETYE MANOR

Near East Grinstead, West Sussex

You can’t help feeling a trifle gauche if you do not arrive at Gravetye Manor in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce – preferably a vintage model. Something else, even a Jag, does not seem quite up to the sedate grandeur of this 16th-century ivy-clad Elizabethan mansion set in 30 acres of gardens and woodlands with its own 3-acre trout lake (guests can fish there in season).

We arrived from East Grinstead in a frequent cab, but the ultra-attentive staff at Gravetye was too discreet to hold that against us.

Gravetye was the property of one of Britain’s greatest gardening geniuses, William Robinson, from 1884 to 1935, and he pioneered the English all-natural flower garden there. He also panelled most of the rooms in the ancient manor with oak from his vast estate, which ran more than 1,000 acres when he purchased it.

Wisely tiny has been carried out to change the private country house character of the place because it became a hotel in 1957, except to add bathrooms to every of its 15 bedrooms.

It really is turn into a favored of Britain’s best politicos, who understandably like to hold high-level conferences there – don’t be surprised if you run into The Lady herself there. The rates for a double area at Gravetye Manor range from $ 128 to $ 216 for a larger area with a sitting region. As of April 1, they enhance to $ 136 and $ 238.

Their restaurant has won so a lot of gourmet awards they don’t even bother to list them all now. But they do recommend you refrain from smoking in the lavish dining-area “in respect for the food and other guests.”

They also provide such niceties as bread baked on the premises twice everyday for the ultimate freshness vegetables and fruits mainly from their own gardens and carafes of water from their personal spring. They use the exact same spring water for the tank exactly where they keep the fresh trout and crayfish that make memorable (and expensive) dining delights. So do their other gastronomic specialties, like home-smoked venison, breast of duck with raspberry sauce, sauteed sweetbreads with oyster mushrooms and spinach mousse.

As their sophisticated brochure promises, Gravetye is indeed “an knowledge that affects all the senses.”