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Last year, my family ditched our rusty car in an attempt to cut the costs of maintenance and parking — as well as reduce our impact on climate change. It’s easy enough to get around London, with its network of buses, Tubes and taxis. But what about travelling to the countryside in style, unfettered by rucksacks?
The Newt’s Great Garden Escape offered a luxurious solution to my hankering for fresh air, providing a rail trip to the Somerset countryside, as well as tour of the hotel’s vast gardens, three-course lunch and a tasting of ciders made in the grounds.
This package was launched before lockdowns but took off last summer, as Covid restrictions loosened and those going stir crazy in the city splashed pent-up savings on stays at a manicured rural idyll.
Ever the intrepid traveller, I signed up. On a crisp sunny day, I made my way to the first-class lounge at Paddington station, escorted to the train by staff from the station, and issued with a breakfast picnic (flaky croissant, excellent butter, granola, ham and orange juice), and then on a short coach trip from Castle Cary station, near Glastonbury, to the Newt’s grounds in Bruton. This area of Somerset has become the new Chipping Norton, or Notting Hill, or some such centre of bougie, with residents including the ex-chancellor George Osborne, fashion designer Stella McCartney and Cameron Mackintosh, the theatre producer.
The Newt, a kind of concept country estate, is not far from the original glamour country hotel Babington House, the rural outpost of Soho House, and the stage for many society and celebrity weddings. My day trip sadly did not include a visit to the actual hotel, which occupies the 17th-century Hadspen House (which was remodelled in the 18th century) and a former dairy, and starts at £385 a night.
The house is the ancestral seat of the Hobhouse family, whose lineage included merchants, landowners and Liberal politicians, including Arthur Hobhouse, who was not only the lover of various members of the Bloomsbury set, notably artist Duncan Grant, but later the architect of the country’s national parks. His daughter-in-law Penelope Hobhouse, the writer and gardener, oversaw the development of the estate’s gardens, opening them to the public.
Today the estate is owned by Karen Roos, the former South Africa Elle Decoration editor, and her husband Koos Bekker, the billionaire businessman and chair of media company Naspers. The couple also own Babylonstoren in South Africa’s Cape Winelands, and bought the Somerset property in 2013, spending six years doing it up.
The focus of the visit is the estate’s 800 acres, a mix of farmland with livestock (British White cattle and Bleu de Maine sheep, which are served in their restaurants), gardens, orchards with 70 varieties of apple and ancient woodland. This garden is a destination itself offering tours, a shop with jams, cider and meat, as well as a restaurant.
In the morning, the group from London was given a tour by Stephen Herrington, the head gardener, including through the woods to see the red and fallow deer and the Japanese and walled gardens. The estate is overseen by 40 gardeners tending to vegetables, salad and herbs, as well as the ancient woodland, and ornamental planting.
Lunch in the airy, glass-fronted restaurant perched on a hillside some way from the hotel, was excellent. All the plates include something grown or foraged from the estate, and remaining ingredients are sourced from neighbouring farms. Vegetables are the star of the show. Starters were crushed Pablo red, lovage, apple and onion seeds with fat asparagus garnished with capers and tarragon. While the main was a roast spiced cauliflower, with fermented leaves and almond yoghurt and a side of chargrilled lamb. For pudding there were perfectly sweetened plums and buffalo-milk ice cream.
The Newt makes much play of its sustainable initiatives such as growing food used in the kitchen and avoiding modern pesticides and synthetic wormers in the farm’s livestock. It uses organic principles, such as not digging soil, which ruins its structure. After lunch, we were given a much-needed opportunity to walk around the grounds and create some room for the next step of the day: a cider-tasting session led by Greg Carnell, the cellar master. Having thrown up once after too much Appletiser (seriously), I have a decades-long aversion to apple drinks, so I approached this with trepidation.
The estate’s Cyder Cellar uses apple juice from the estate’s orchards and surrounding areas, with no added sugar or water, deploying a cold- fermentation method. In almost four years, the estate has produced almost 1mn bottles, which it sells in the shop and online. It was a revelation. I most enjoyed the fine sparkling cider, which was like a champagne in fizziness and dryness, and the sweet pudding cider — a good substitute for Sauternes.
Then we were whisked to the returning train to London, served a cream tea in boxes with as much wine, cider or tea as we wanted (not much by then). For a day, £335 is steep. And although we were looked after by two attentive tour guides, for that price I would have expected plates rather than a picnic box, and access to the hotel. However, it includes a year’s Newt membership, which includes unlimited entry to the gardens and usually costs £68, or £30 to locals (under-16s go free). The packed itinerary did not allow much free time to go roaming, so I would return when the gardens are in full bloom.
Emma Jacobs was a guest of the Newt. The Great Garden Escape to The Newt in Somerset is priced at £335 per adult, £260 per child (ages five to 15) and runs on Fridays and Saturdays until September 2022. Tickets on sale at thenewtinsomerset.com/great-garden-escape
Do you have a green getaway in and around London to recommend? Tell us in the comments
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