Lime Wood

Lime Wood occupies a Regency house just outside Lyndhurst, surrounded on all sides by open forest. Commoners' ponies wander up to the boundary and sometimes past it, which sets the tone: this is a serious hotel that declines to be stiff about it. Interiors are warm and slightly bohemian, with a lot of texture and very little formality.

The Herb House spa sits in its own building across the lawn — four floors of treatment rooms, a hydro pool, sauna and a rooftop herb garden, with a mud house and forest-sauna sessions for those who want them. There is a separate spa kitchen serving lighter food for anyone who has no intention of getting dressed.

Dinner happens at Hartnett Holder & Co, the Italian-leaning restaurant Angela Hartnett runs with Luke Holder, where dishes arrive to share rather than in courses. Beyond the grounds, the forest tracks towards Beaulieu and Brockenhurst make for excellent riding, cycling and walking, and the coast at Lymington is twenty minutes south.