It wasn’t until a few months after our stay at The Newt in Somerset that we fully grasped the spell this ‘farm fatale’ set within a bucolic working estate casts on its guests. “The Newt changed my life”, a fashion designer told us at a party in London’s Sloane Square, explaining that her stay inspired the transformation of her backyard into a mini orchard. But while we’ve yet to pick up a spade ourselves (call us when Alessi launches one, thank you very much), we can’t deny the special sway of perhaps England’s most universally admired country estate.
Londoners hardly agree on anything these days, and yet, two assertions will remain unchallenged in almost any social setting: firstly, that The Newt in Somerset is the most ambitious of rural escapes in all of Anglia, and secondly, that the Cotswolds is full of Americans now, anyway. So eagerly anticipated was the hotel and estate that when it opened in 2019, The Newt brought a kind of attention to Bruton that the market town hadn’t seen since the discovery of a rare copy of the Magna Carta at the local King’s School in the 1950s.
Although the hotel didn’t exactly come out of the blue. In fact, you might argue that when art evangelists Iwan and Manuela Wirth opened an outpost of their Hauser & Wirth empire in the area in 2014, it perhaps foreshadowed the arrival of someplace large and luxurious, where fin-tech millionaires and collectors could book reiki sessions and meditate amidst singing bowls after the exertions of acquiring another 3D-printed sculpture (those pesky new fincas in Ibiza that won’t furnish themselves!).
Not that The Newt in Somerset announced itself with a grand gesture. Instead, a rather unassuming gate welcomes guests, and it’s the sheer expanse of the estate itself that does the talking. There’s so much to explore here, in fact, that day visitors with memberships (who access the grounds via a dedicated entrance in the Threshing Barn, where an installation by Dutch Studio Drift awaits them) come here just to bag artisanal jams in the on-site farm shops, attend talks and near-festival-sized events, or stroll around the apple orchards and woodlands, home to everything from a deer park to the ‘Viper’ canopy walk and a beekeeping exhibition cheekily named ‘Beezantium’ – because what’s a hotel without a solid strategy on apicultural advocacy?
The main attraction for many, of course, are the Patrice Taravella-designed formal gardens, extensive and featuring a Baroque maze, fountains, and overgrown walkways alongside a postcard-worthy cottage and, conveniently, a tucked-away service phone allowing guests to order martinis for an afternoon tipple amidst the splendid, green idyll. Large parts of the property are accessible only to guests of the hotel, and the entire complex turns into a vast private playground for badminton matches and the like when the estate closes for visitors in the late afternoon. The most impressive gardens at The Newt, however, are arguably of the productive kind, where over 350 vegetable varieties are grown for usage in the on-site restaurants, a remarkable showcase of British farming at a time when the sector is under ever-greater threat.
Owing to the grounds’ scale, hotel guests are handed keys for the buggies dotting the estate, and we found this rather ingenious: We’re constantly in the back of these things (and not rarely have to go out of our way to arrange pick-ups in advance), but can’t remember the last time we were actually trusted to drive one ourselves – call it a win for common sense. And driving is big here, especially because accommodations are split across three different sites. The two-bedroom Gate Lodge with a country kitchen lends itself to a more private stay, while the 17-room Farmyard, featuring a dedicated restaurant and wellness facilities, has received an extensive glow-up courtesy of architect Richard Parr. Think exposed bricks, wooden beams and sisal rugs – a farm fantasy so perfect, you almost expect Nicole Kidman, wrapped in a boyfriend cardigan and clutching a mug with both hands, to walk through the front door.
Although the star of the show is the Grade II*-listed Georgian manor that is Hadspen House, which, together with an adjoining stable yard, is home to 23 rooms and suites. It would be hard to overstate the tremendous beauty of Hadspen, with its orange limestone facade, sourced from a nearby quarry and conveniently weathered by the elements for your poetic projections: One night, we stood in the dark walkway out front, staring at the manor, cloaked in fog and a warm glow pouring from its large sash windows. It was a sight to behold, and one we thought fit for the pages of Britain’s most revered novelists, from Austen to Woolf, drawn throughout history to the country’s many stately homes.
Inside, contemporary furnishings and pops of bold colour evoke an altogether more modern atmosphere. The creative direction of The Newt in Somerset was spearheaded by co-owner Karen Roos, who has done away with the stuffy and overly ornamental interiors you might expect to find in an English estate, replacing them instead with something cleaner and cooler, yet rooted in country living. It’s a take on design evidencing the kinds of guests the hotel seeks to attract – the well-heeled yet culturally clued-in, who crave the depth of a crumbling farm stay (but make it boutique) over Saint Tropez in summer.
Their aesthetic direction and fun features also encourage a way of engaging more liberally with the spaces, be it the green-tiled croquet room, with its vintage record player, or the stylish library where guests relax and play board games by a fireplace, surrounded by portraits of the lucky figures who called Hadspen House their home in another day and age. Once, stumbling into the manor’s outrageously cute boot room with a martini in hand, we thought that we couldn’t recall the last time we’d felt so at ease to move and express ourselves as we pleased in a setting this grand and historical. And what a joy that is in often stuffy Britain.
That you don’t just book any room at The Newt in Somerset is perhaps obvious, for each accommodation benefits from a range of perks and quirks to make it uniquely attractive. We stayed in room number three, the sole one accessed via its own staircase and the only bedroom with a private balcony overlooking the gardens. During the warmer months, the hotel sets up loungers and a small dining table here, allowing you to soak up the sun alongside a duo of pretty sculptures tucked into the balcony’s alcoves. The bedroom itself was just as lovely, featuring a fireplace, a four-poster bed and a minibar stocked with the estate’s own ‘Red Love’ apple juice. That said, the space was a little crammed, and there were too many chairs for our liking (we only have one bum to sit on).
Ornate plasterwork adorns walls and ceilings throughout Hadspen House, and our room featured a collection of large relief plaques on its meadowy creme pistachio walls (Farrow & Ball’s ‘Mizzle’ shade, our friend guessed, although we thought we’d recognised Edward Bulmer’s ‘Tea Green’). Down a hallway with built-in storage, our bathroom beckoned with a Victorian era ribcage shower, a freestanding roll top bathtub and a heaven-sent Dyson hair dryer to fix our locks after a day’s adventures in the glorious, English rain. Rural hideaways in the UK routinely assume that because their guests have escaped to the country, they’re willing to embrace their inner scarecrow. Au contraire, we say, and are delighted each time we find high-spec gadgets and proper vanity set-ups beyond the M25.
Gastronomy is a cornerstone of any stay at The Newt in Somerset, and a cluster of dining outlets celebrates all things ‘Modern British’. The light-flooded and open-to-members Garden Café showcases the estate’s produce beautifully; the Farmyard Kitchen does hearty but healthy classics (don’t miss the Garner Bar next door) and the Botanical Rooms at Hadspen House, split between an elegant, oak-panelled dining room and an orangery home to enough plants to trick your brain into thinking you’re taking tea in the gardens themselves, arguably serves as the estate’s main restaurant. It’s here that guests gather for leisurely breakfasts, with a seasonal harvest buffet by the entrance and a menu that feels generous but not excessive.
Guests without dietary requirements will get their money’s worth here, although as herbivores, we were underwhelmed by the sole plant-based menu option, oats, and had the team prepare a vegetable broth for us instead, as we watched others tuck into flaky croissants and pastries. This was a recurring theme during our stay, and while we’d lie if we said we didn’t enjoy our meals, we often looked for proteins in vain, and found it puzzling that each dish we had was a compromise of ‘left-out ingredients’: the Jerusalem artichokes without the cream, the crispy potatoes without the aioli, the asparagus without the butter sauce, the list goes on. If you combined all the ingredients that had been removed from our meals, we’d argue, you’d end up with a pretty solid (if very greasy) tasting menu.
In fairness, this is often the standard in luxury hospitality, but The Newt in Somerset holds a special status as arguably England’s most ambitious county estate – not to mention one with acres of land where an astonishing amount of foods are grown (and, might we add, one with rates to match its reputation). So when London’s Fauxmagerie makes artisanal cheeses from nuts and beans, and Kirk Haworth’s restaurant Plates is awarded a Michelin Star for its vegan cuisine, we’d like to think that it’s possible to create a menu containing choices that are inclusive of everyone and bring genuinely exciting and nutritionally balanced plant-based cooking to those who request it, and those who are simply in the mood for it. If there is any one hotel in the country with the capacity to do just that, surely it’s this one.
A part of the estate that’s particularly deserving of praise are its wellness facilities. There’s a glass-fronted yoga and fitness studio so sleekly designed, it almost looks plucked from a Norwegian fjord and airlifted all the way to Bruton. Just across, in the stable yard, a whisper-quiet country spa with a humongous pool that extends from an indoor space into the garden sits amidst a landscape of steam and halotherapy rooms, as well as a sauna at whose end a glass wall offers views into the green. Spas occasionally feel like something hotels do just to tick a box, but with spaces so generously sized and handsomely designed, this is not the case here.
Our massage, in a treatment room featuring farm utensils hanging from an exposed brick wall, was superb, not least because our therapist was soft-spoken and reassuring. And many a detail conveyed a sense that the wellness offering is incredibly considered, including a ‘no slippers’ rule (“We don’t want to contribute to landfill”, the team explained) and a glass of apple juice we were offered post-treatment, a thoughtful nod to the estate’s orchards. This really is soil to soul in its purest form, and they do it so very well at The Newt.
Whatever it is that might draw you to the estate, the wonderful thing about this place is that it’s inevitable you’ll also end up falling in love with another slice of all that’s on offer here. The Newt in Somerset is a working estate with rooms, not the other way around, and its team – always keen to share ideas and expertise in the arts of gardening, cider-making, harvesting and the like – ensure that guests never forget. But estate and rooms aside, there’s also a sense of intention here: a reminder to do things slowly and thoroughly, in tune with nature and with a view towards honouring our special relationship with land and heritage. No wonder, then, that when Londoners return to the Big Smoke, they take a little bit of this place with them as they depart.
Photography courtesy of The Newt in Somerset
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While you’re OutThere
In a secluded corner of the estate’s grounds, an original Romano-British Villa dating back to AD351 was painstakingly refurbished by The Newt, and it belongs on any itinerary (look out for the cheeky mural depicting members of a certain royal family). But there’s plenty more to keep you busy in and around Bruton, including the spiritually significant Glastonbury Tor, and the aforementioned outpost of Hauser & Wirth.
