Lime Wood

Lime Wood sits deep in the New Forest National Park, outside Lyndhurst, a Regency-style country house that opened as a hotel in 2009 after five years in the making. The architecture is by Charles Morris and Ben Pentreath, and the interiors began with David Collins before later work by Martin Brudnizki, Rob Angell and Susie Atkinson. The result is a house of flagstone halls, fireside rooms and a glazed courtyard bar, with 33 bedrooms spread between the main building and lodges in the grounds. The Michelin Guide awards it Two Keys.

Food runs through Hartnett Holder & Co, the Italian-leaning restaurant led by Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder, and the private rooms are served from the same kitchen. Downstairs, HH&Co Backstage seats fourteen along a kitchen table where a chef cooks in front of the party, and the Kitchen Table seats eight inside the working restaurant kitchen. The Cedar Room takes sixteen at one long table beside a bay window onto the South Terrace, the panelled Study twelve by an open fire, and the Drawing Room, redesigned with Susie Atkinson, holds a reception of fifty.

The larger answer is the whole house. From Monday to Thursday Lime Wood is let on an exclusive-use basis with all 33 bedrooms, the lounges, the event rooms, the gardens and the Herb House spa. It seats eighty for dinner indoors and up to 110 once a marquee extends the house. London is about an hour and a half away by car.