Dorset Downs · England
Summer Lodge Country House Hotel
A Georgian dower house in Hardy country, with a drawing room designed by Hardy himself
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Evershot is a one-street village in the folds of the Dorset Downs, and Summer Lodge occupies the former dower house of the Ilchester estate at one end of it. Thomas Hardy, who trained as an architect, drew the plans for the drawing room extension, and the village appears in his fiction under a different name.
The twenty-five rooms are individually decorated in a traditional English register - florals, antiques, fresh flowers, open fires - without tipping into pastiche. Service is the strong point and the hotel is consistently rated for it.
Behind the house there are four acres of gardens, an indoor pool, tennis and a spa, plus a cellar of several thousand bottles. The Jurassic Coast is around half an hour south and the surrounding chalk downland is good walking country.
At a glance
What to expect
- Indoor swimming pool
- Spa treatment rooms
- Tennis court
- Award-winning wine cellar
- Four acres of gardens
- Fine dining restaurant
- Afternoon tea
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