New Milton, southern New Forest · Hotel
Five-star country house hotel and spa in 130 acres near New Milton, with treehouse suites, tennis courts, a golf course and a nine-mile walk to the sea.
Chewton Glen sits in around 130 acres of parkland on the southern edge of the New Forest, between New Milton and Highcliffe and roughly a mile from the cliffs above Christchurch Bay. The house dates from the 18th century and has operated as a hotel since the 1960s, and it has spent most of that time at the top of the country-house-hotel rankings in England.
Accommodation runs from classic rooms in the main house through garden suites with private terraces to the treehouse suites, a set of elevated timber lodges set among trees at the edge of the estate, each with a hot tub on the deck and breakfast delivered by hatch. The treehouses are the property's signature and are booked far in advance. Interiors throughout are comfortable rather than minimalist, with plenty of natural light and good bathrooms.
Facilities are unusually extensive: a large spa with indoor and outdoor pools, hydrotherapy, saunas and a long treatment list; a nine-hole golf course; indoor and outdoor tennis; a gym; and a cookery school running day classes. The Dining Room serves modern British cooking with a strong kitchen garden element, and the Kitchen, the more casual restaurant, was set up with James Martin.
Prices sit well above the rest of the New Forest, and the hotel is aimed squarely at special occasions, spa breaks and anyone wanting the facilities to be part of the point. Families are genuinely well catered for, with a children's club in holiday periods, but the setting is coastal parkland rather than deep forest — for woodland from the door, somewhere around Brockenhurst or Lyndhurst is a better fit.