Estate of the Nation: The Newt in Somerset
Get drunk on English bucolia at The Newt in Somerset, a hotel and country club where luxury and natural beauty are mixed to perfection.
Everyone seems to want to go to The Newt, and I cannot figure out why. Very rarely in life are there multifaceted reasons why the monied and social set wants to converge on one place — usually there is a singular motivating factor. People are attracted to 5 Hertford Street for Robin Birley’s taste; they go to Davidoff of London for the Sahakians; they go to Bellamy’s for the fish fingers and smoked eel mousse; and they go to Palm Beach for the tax benefits. There is always what I believe is called, in corporate parlance, the ‘red thread’ — a unifying feature — but after my stay at The Newt, whose ribbon cutting was in 2019, I remain unsure what it is.
The concept is a wonderful thing — taking a country-house estate and harnessing the cosy comforts of the landed squires of old, then using the land for conservation, sustainability and low-carbon purposes. There is a
Vaughan Williams symphony that can be made out of this Somerset beauty. There are brooks and lambkins frisking in the fields, and deer remain coquettish but tame, allowing you close enough to see but not touch. Row upon row of apple trees are espaliered and pruned for optimal harvest. There is evidence everywhere of our nation’s horticultural artistry, which has been mastered over centuries.
Hadspen House is imposing enough to form the centrepiece but, to inject a little cynicism, not too large as to be unaffordable to run. The rooms for the hotel largely sit satellite in old stables or outhouses that have been given a facelift that reflects the tastes of the owners, Koos Bekker and Karen Roos. The South African visionaries established their first set-up just outside Cape Town, Babylonstoren, which, according to The Rake’s South African Creative Director, Brandon Hinton, is the most talked-about venue in the country.
There are lambkins frisking in the fields, and the deer are coquettish, allowing you close enough to see but not touch.
The demand for rooms at The Newt has been such that, in 2021, the hotel had to build an enclave across the other side of the A359 called the Farmhouse. These vast rooms come with their own fireplace, ginormous bath, and a beautiful blend of old, exposed The demand for rooms at The Newt has been such that, in 2021, the hotel had to build an enclave across the other side of the A359 called the Farmhouse. These vast rooms come with their own fireplace, ginormous bath, and a beautiful blend of old, exposed wood and stone with modern amenities, including an in-room hammam. Availability for the Farmhouse is scant. What makes it somewhat appealing are the golf buggies. Up the path from the room is a stable of buggies you can use to whizz over to the main house — with a tunnel under the aforementioned A-road. It’s a brilliant gimmick, but unlike most gimmicks the buggies are essential, owing to the size of the estate. It is an estate with space enough to hold an orchard, grazing grounds, a dove house, a Roman villa, a spa, and several restaurants and eateries. The effort the hotel has gone to, and the creativity this allows for, is exceptional.
The herd of cows on the estate provides everything from meat on your plate to milk that heads to the creamery (on the grounds) to produce cheese for the farm shop or pudding courses, as well as ice cream in the shop next door. The apples from the orchard are taken to your room and used in the cider produced on site. The provision for this is clearly an expensive operation, but the messaging behind it says that this is a place that will go to every length to provide for your stay (except an unnecessary carbon footprint).
The style of stay is up to the guest — is it for R&R, grounding in nature, health, peace and quiet, or revelry outside the usual confines of city walls? The hotel allows for all of the above, and one needn’t impinge on the other. It is certainly romantic — plenty of fires going, the darkness of the countryside at night — all the while the venue prioritises environmental friendliness in such a way that it will be incredibly difficult for other establishments to beat.
Perhaps that’s it — the hook. Leafy Somerset is not as close to London as the Cotswolds or Hampshire, but since its opening, the roads leading to The Newt have been busy with guests happy to take the pilgrimage. The Newt is a standard bearer, evidence of the moral that the hard thing to do is worth doing, and we go there not only to enjoy the efforts from the wonderful staff and the Bekker-Roos combo but to see a vision of what could, and should, be.
