Originally Posted by
Londonjetsetter
I have been researching a weekend break for late October/early November. Priorities are pretty countryside, good food, roaring fires and within 2.5 hours of London. FS Hampshire is an obvious choice, but the photos I have seen just don't appeal to me - it seems to lack warmth and the restaurant looks like an 80's nightclub. Otherwise Whatley Manor looks lovely, although the rooms perhaps a little chintzy. Babington House - trendy, but probably not great service and, according to Tripadvisor, swarming with out of control children. Anywhere else I should consider?
Your sense of each of the places you mention in the post aligns perfectly with my experiences at them--
I thought FS Hampshire was a real disappointment, utterly lacking in all of the reasons I'd wanted a weekend in the English countryside. The grounds are in recovery, with a lot of planting of juvenile trees that hopefully, 10-20 years down the road, will provide the sort of lush greenery that you expect in the English countryside. Now, the area around the hotel is quite barren. Inside, you feel as if you're in a corporate hotel anywhere in the world. And despite the fact that they claim that there is a "kids free" time in the indoor pool, the hotel staff told me that they never enforce that, so there were screaming kids everywhere, so much so that I could hear them all through my spa treatment (which FS then comped).
Whatley Manor is the most polished experience I've had at an English countryside hotel, but I wasn't crazy about the interior decor. For me, it's all about those tremendous gardens, which perhaps you could enjoy just by dining on the terrace there, rather than staying?
Babington House--I posted about my experience there on Trip Advisor last October. I love the interior decor, but the house is simply too small for the number of guests there--and the ground floor layout is absurd, so that there are people constantly coming and going through tiny corridors that connect the lobby to the dining areas, and the spa similarly is just overrun with guests . . . I retreated to my room for virtually my interior time there--because it was just too frenzied and chaotic everywhere else.
I went to Cowley Manor in 2005 and loved it for the views from the private terrace associated with the top rooms in the main house. So I'm glad to hear that it's been refurbished, since the interior design was starting to get a bit tired even in 2005.
I cannot wait to go to Lime Wood, which I've been following religiously since they first put up their gorgeous website. That would definitely be my choice for a November trip.