The best country house hotels in the UK
We might not be able to claim year-round sun and over-water villas are certainly thin on the ground, but when it comes to country house hotels, nowhere on the planet can match the calibre of the biscuit-hued boltholes that pepper the British countryside. Still a tonic to urban life, these grand houses were once the private homes of illustrious families but now proudly open their doors to a much more varied guest list.
Whether you’re on the hunt for a Bridgerton-inspired break (sans aggressive game of Pall Mall, perhaps) or keen to flit from fireside to poolside without hassle, we’ve picked out the cream of the crop when it comes to country houses in the UK. Here, you’ll find charm by the engraved silver bucket and atmosphere in abundance.
The Newt, Somerset
Driving away from The Newt feels like you’ve just been let in on a very special secret. No matter how many pictures you swoon over or reviews you read beforehand, nothing can prepare you for the experience that awaits – from the next-level service to the hotel’s sheer scale. Even to call it a hotel is misleading – the sprawling estate, minutes from Bruton, is made up of acres of gardens, woodland, farmland and cyder orchards with an impressive Georgian manor at its core. In 2021, The Newt added Farmyard, where 17 more bedrooms plus a restaurant, bar and second pool are just a buggy ride away.
One of the (many) joys here is that you are surprised every turn. As we make our way along the stone path we get our first glimpse of Hadspen House ahead, its burnt honeyed stone glinting in the sunshine. On the right is the spa, where faint wafts of lavender from the herbal mediaeval garden fill the air, and to the left, the Stable Yard, where our room (one of 23 in this part of the estate) awaits. Like everything else here, the room is ginormous and spoiling – all white linens and fur throws, with vaulted, beamed ceilings and a deep bathtub at the bottom of a towering four-poster bed. Back in the main house, there are several spaces to lounge in – the library, with its green panelled walls, oil paintings and squashy jewel-toned chairs, is the perfect place to tuck into the complimentary tea and homemade scones.
Food here is – unsurprisingly – seasonal and local, including produce from The Newt’s own kitchen gardens and greenhouses. There are three restaurants: the glass-fronted Garden Cafe, which overlooks the gardens below, Farmyard Kitchen, serving up a laidback menu including flatbreads laden with seasonal veg and locally-made cheeses, and the Botanical Rooms in the main house, where guests can graze on a continental breakfast spread of fresh croissants, seasonal fruit and juices before a three-course menu at lunch and supper, full of seasonal ingredients and prettily presented dishes.
There is so much to see and do, even exploring The Newt’s gardens could take a whole day (don’t miss a Garden Tour – free for hotel guests). There’s the Cyder Press, the Beezantium – where you learn about bees, of course – and the Story of Gardening exhibition. Perhaps most impressive of them all is the Roman Villa Experience – a complete reconstruction of a Romano-British villa inspired by one found on the estate dating back to 351AD, alongside an interactive visitor centre. The Newt is the ultimate countryside escape, and I can absolutely guarantee you’ll leave wondering how soon you can return. Sarah Allard
Soho House BabingtonBabington House, Somerset
In the tranquil Somerset countryside, just six miles from arty town Frome, sits Babington House – a Georgian manor surrounded by charming gardens and perfectly manicured lawns. Babington is Soho House’s original country spot, arriving long before Farmhouse to give city dwellers an escape from the big smoke without giving up the frills of London life. Relaxation is the name of the game here – evident from the moment you step foot onto the cobbled, flower-flanked path leading up to the house, the arched entrance to which is surrounded by climbing white roses. The floral scent mixes with the smells of wood burners and the only sounds are those of birds and low chatter from guests inside. It’s hard not to feel a sense of calm before you’ve stepped foot inside.
The decor is exactly as you would expect from Soho House – lavish, comfortable and full of vintage finds with the right amount of modern touches. Guests can choose between one of the 10 rooms in the main house – with four-poster beds and freestanding baths – or one of the lovely coach house and walled garden bedrooms in the grounds.
Supper is served in the Orangery, where you’ll find a British menu stuffed with locally-sourced produce, including spaghetti with nettle sauce, spring vegetable risotto and rotisserie Castlemead chicken.
In the summer months, recline on ginormous green and white striped sun loungers with one of the House’s infamous Picantes before a dip in the heated outdoor pool; in the winter, pull on a pair of wellies to explore the grounds before complimentary afternoon tea served in the deli bar and a film in the 45-seat cinema (there are free screenings every day). There’s also a Cowshed spa on site (I can highly recommend a bespoke facial with Rhiannon – one of the most blissful experiences of my entire year) plus tennis courts, a football pitch, sauna, steam room, gym and even a kids’ club. Sarah Allard
© MARK BOLTONLeonardslee House, West Sussex
With the touchdown of The Pig in The South Downs, Felpham’s funky Beachcroft Beach Hut Suites, and Cabins and Castle’s chic portfolio of curated rentals in the area, West Sussex is fast becoming a go-to UK escape. Adding a touch of country house hurrah into the mix is Leonardslee House, a historic Grade II-listed Italianate mansion set in a sprawling 240-acre estate in Horsham, planted by Victorian botanical collector Edmund Loder. By day families stomp around seven interlaced lakes in Hunter wellies, taking in Anton Smit’s monumental bronze sculptures or faux-fari admiring the free-roaming wallaby colony. Come nighttime, the house is a spot already feted in culinary circles. That’s thanks to Restaurant Interlude, a Michelin-starred affair where acclaimed Chef Jean Delport serves multi-course suppers underpinned by a ‘hunter-gatherer’ approach to 10 tables in an intimate dining room. Nostalgic classics from Delport’s native South Africa are brought to life through ingredients grown in Leonardslee’s gardens combined with hyper-local farm produce. Done-up-to-the-nines diners feast on sublime plates of bracken fiddleheads with pine and burnt butter and Sussex chocolate with silver birch sap and sweet potato. The menu is accompanied by wines from Leonardslee’s Western Cape sister property Benguela Cove – both are owned by wine guru Penny Streeter. Afterwards, they can bed down in 10 new bedrooms which channel lady-of-the-manor splendour. Floral Penny Morrison and Colefax and Fowler wallpapers ensure rooms bloom year-round, larger suites with cornicing and antiques are swept in blush pinks, duck egg blues and slates, dressed with frilled cushions, and rounded off with Calacatta marble bathrooms, dominated by metal bathtubs with rose-infused bath salts. Delivering unabashed countryside decadence, Leonardslee is another reason to hotfoot it to West Sussex. Ianthe Butt
Phil BoormanThe Grove of Narberth, Pembrokeshire
This country house hotel was lovingly restored by live-in owners, Neil and Zoë Kedward after they fell in love with the then-derelict building on a weekend jaunt. The Grade II listed, 18th-century pile now ties together modern luxe and country charm, alongside two restaurants – the more casual Artisan Rooms and The Fernery, oak-panelled, candle-lit and cosy – four cottages and a 15th-century longhouse built for mediaeval farmers and their livestock. The interiors feel regal yet rooted in both their heritage and their current surroundings, showcasing the talent and artistry of the Pembrokeshire community. Rooms are filled with handmade furniture (both new and antique), local pottery, vintage Welsh lace, and artwork and photography by local artists. The garden looks out onto the famed greenery of Pembrokeshire and, in the distance, the Preseli mountains.
Adam LynkCliveden House, Berkshire
Illustrious Cliveden House is the site of the famed Profumo affair and, more recently, where Meghan Markle spent the night ahead of her marriage to Prince Harry. First built in 1666 by the Duke of Buckingham, the Grade I-listed manor has been a hotel since 1984. Intricate exteriors and imposing wood-clad lounges enchant all who walk through its doors, while thoughtful touches like framed family photos and a free-flowing check-in space only add to its charm. Each room is bedecked with antiques, handmade beds, heavy drapes, and walls adorned with intricate wallpapers and original artworks. The rest of the interior feels like a palace, from the resplendent fireplace in the Great Hall to the cathedral-high ceilings in the lobby. Slightly separate to the palatial main house, the modern spa is a retreat from the heavy wood, with a light-filled, stone passageway leading toward the indoor pool and then on to the outdoor pool and external hot tubs, both a prime spot from which to marvel at the gold-clad clock tower. The estate’s gardens, spanning 376 acres, run down to the Thames, where guests can enjoy a lazy boat trip or head a little further afield for a Windsor day trip, while Heston’s famed Fat Duck is just a 14-minute drive away.
Jake EasthamLime Wood, New Forest
Perched at the end of a long driveway (often clad by the free-roaming horses of the New Forest), Lime Wood is all late 18th-century on the outside and achingly-cool trad-luxe on the inside. Though you could perhaps imagine pulling around the hotel’s beehives and smokehouse to the front door via carriage, inside the crowd is a cosmopolitan bunch, clustered around wood fires that crackle amid patterned wallpaper and plush furniture or heading across the checkerboard floors to the double-height courtyard bar – the beating heart of the hotel – or out to the Herb House, where no less than four pools await. In the evening, guests migrate toward the glamorous Hartnett, Holder & Co restaurant run by superstar chef Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder (of Orrery and The Sloane Club). With views over the garden toward the back of the house, you can tuck into a menu which includes Peter Hannan’s Glenarm Estate salt-aged beef rib and white onion risotto with confit cod. As all good nights at a country house hotel should, the evening is likely to end with a soak in one of the claw-foot tubs that grace the rooms (peppered between the main house and a range of woodland suites). Although, unlike those who might have stayed a few hundred years ago, the products are all full-size Bamford goodies.
Chris TubbsThe Grove, Hertfordshire
As far as history goes, The Grove (just 18 minutes from London Euston but 18 worlds away from the hustle and bustle of the capital) takes the biscuit. Although the undulating Georgian manor house, formerly the home of the Earls of Clarendon, has a considerable history of its own, archaeologists have found artefacts on the grounds dating to 3000 BC. Highly revered locally, it became a popular weekend hangout for the likes of Queen Victoria and various 19th-century socialites. The hotel has managed to seamlessly blend its past — still offering a mix of activities including clay pigeon shooting, hawking, archery and horseback riding — with a modern members club vibe. Corridors in the mansion house are lined with walls of velvet, grand flower displays are changed weekly and the myriad lounges, each more sumptuous than the last, are the perfect spot from which to take afternoon tea (well, it only seems right) or gaze out at the uplit gardens over a nightcap in the evening. An addition sadly not available to the Clarendon lineage is the Sequoia Spa, with its 24-metre swimming pool, saunas, steam rooms and a full gym and classes programme while a slightly smaller pool in the Alice In Wonderland-inspired walled garden makes for the perfect summer spot. Though The Grove’s dining options seem to match its number of guests in terms of sheer volume, The Glasshouse is the flagship buffet-style restaurant, reimagined to create the feel of an orangery, with light flooding in from its double-storey, Singaporean-inspired windows and, come evening, mesmerising views of the flames rising from the nightly fire-pit.
Adam LynkBarnsley House, Cotswolds
The Cotswolds is home to a less-than-humble flock of biscuit-hued boltholes, but Barnsley House, a 1697 stone manor with just 18 rooms and acclaimed gardens, manages to pip its nose out in front. Once the home of renowned gardener Rosemary Verey – the meticulously-maintained and ever-enchanting gardens still a testament to her creative vision – the boutique hotel is now a low-key favourite among celebrities and well-heeled urbanites looking to shirk their daily responsibilities. It's country-smart personified: fires crackle at every turn, cosy lounges invite intimate nightcaps, and the three or four attentive staff on duty make the manor house feel like a home. A sprawling spa is all well and good, but Barnsley House focuses on a memorable experience rather than 25 different types of rain showers. Their wellness offering comes complete with outdoor hydrotherapy sunken into endless fields that stop only to meet the skies beyond. Rooms range from sunlit spaces within the manor house to more modern duplex suites housed on one side of the garden.
Cromlix Hotel, Kinbuck
The Scottish countryside is positively peppered with grand estates, so why does Cromlix stand out as one of the best? First, we must address the elephant in the room that is Andy Murray, as the tennis player is the current owner of the property and his wife, Kim Sears, had a big influence on the interiors. But the country house hotel doesn’t lean on its famous owner as the only reason why one might want to pay a visit. The hotel has an intimate, homely feel to it, with decor gracious, yet glamorous, and particular attention has been paid to both preserving and highlighting the house’s charming original features. Under its turreted roof sits a billiards room, a whiskey room, a library and two drawing rooms, as well as a canteen-style observatory restaurant with an open kitchen. The 15 rooms are luxuriously kitted out with thick pile carpets, heavy curtains, huge beds and the softest towels, as well as generous supplies of toiletries from Arran Aromatics. Rumour has it that Judy Murray took on the arduous task of trying out every single room in the hotel to ensure it was up to scratch.
Heckfield Place, Hampshire
Much fuss was made of Heckfield Place when it first opened, and for good reason, as the Georgian country house hotel frames sweeping views over the parkland and lake (ideal for wild swimming) beyond, and inside, a dream team of designers, architects and chefs have pulled together something quite spectacular. The former home of Charles Shaw-Lefevre, a 19th-century big Whig, the country house (which famously took an extraordinary amount of time to ‘get right’ and complete) is now a fragrant folly of high-ceilinged lounges (where complimentary tea and cake are served every day at 4pm), intimate corners, grand staircases and original flagstone flooring. It feels classic and traditional but without any of the pomp that you might find at other hotels of a similar vein. The main house signature rooms are spacious, with sweeping great views over the parkland, while rooms in The Corridors annexe are cosy, stylish retreats with tiny dressing rooms, opening onto a private garden terrace. Aside from a plush private cinema and a tiny but perfectly formed spa (expected to be extended to include a swimming pool this year), Sky Gyllenhal (best known for winning Petersham Nurseries Café a Michelin star, and her restaurant Spring at Somerset House) heads up the main restaurant, Marle, and its ever-changing, seasonal menu.