Winter breaks are where the English countryside hotels really come into their own, if you ask me. Cosy fires, candlelit dinners and bracing walks to banish a headful of cocktails. Perhaps the ultimate place in this regard is officially (now I’ve been) the Four Seasons in Hampshire.
Alright its hardly news that the legendary hotel chain (which opened its first hotel in Toronto in 1961) do the whole luxury stay thing very well, but it just hits particularly right at Christmas when it become a kind of dream world for families.
Where is it?
An hour to two hours outside of London, depending where you leave from, it’s out past Aldershot near Dogmersfield, and located in an 18th Century manor house on the kind of country pile estate that immediately has you correcting your posture and conducting yourself with a refinement not seen in your usual guise as a South London misanthrope.
The place is set in 500 acres, giving it a real majestic sweep, where wildlife and country pursuits are intrinsically built into your stay. That is, unless you’re a family of indoors-y types like us, still stuck in lockdown ways; in which case, the hotel offers plenty too.
The rooms
Our executive suite seemingly brought all of my children’s Home Alone fantasies to life. “Yeah, except we’re not home and we’re not alone,” retorted my son, to which I responded in a calm fashion, that I was referring to Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and wasn’t this room a similar space of huge beds, modernist stylings and a vast bath. “We’re not alone though,” he said, but I rose above that and chose to move on with my life. But the point is, the rooms are the kind that produce a sigh of contentment, an immediate donning of robe and slippers, and a solemn vow not to go outside during the entire trip.
The activities
Our stay coincided with the Christmas market on the site, which fully illustrated the place that the Four Seasons holds in this area. It is not simply a taste of the good life for Londoners, it’s a hub for the community here, with a few hundred people turning up for shopping, festive eats and gallons of hot chocolate. “It smells of Christmas!” my daughter beamed, by which I think she meant the chocolate, given how much our family binges on the stuff the second the calendar doors start opening, though it could also to do with the trees and roaring fires in every hallway, or even the reindeer outside who were happy snaffling treats from little hands.
The children were happy with a little book of challenges to complete, with each achievement rewarded with a stamp. Most of interest was the family pool, Sharkie’s Reef, in the stunning on-site Spa, which rewarded them with a stamp for going down the red Xmas slide. The level of control and discipline it required for me not to go down it too was astronaut-level.
They’re really good with kids at this place, there’s hawk walks for young birders, horse riding, carriage rides and a petting zoo. And they’re even putting on pantomimes on December 20 and 23 — you don’t get this level of effort at the Travelodge.
Despite all this going on, inevitably we spent most of our time in the Games Room above the kids club in Reeds Cottage, next to the Adventure Playground adjacent to the main house. In here, a pool table, air hockey, ping pong and a couple of games consoles kept all of us amused for several hours. Sorry Nature, but they had a Playstation.
The dining
The main restaurant, called Wild Carrot, was of particular note for staying child friendly until quite late. Usually you find there’s an expectation that children should not be seen or heard past about 8pm in fine dining places, but much to our relief – after falling foul to London Friday night traffic – we were far from the only family staying up way past bedtime. The food for the children was very good, a straight-up burger and pasta situation that kept their tired rage at bay, while my Puglian Burrata starter and Line Caught Sea Bass with brown shrimps and creamy leeks, was exactly the kind of indulgent comfort eating required.
As ever though, when it comes to me at least, the cocktails are the stars, with their menu revolving around ‘The Seven Moods of Drinking’ — I went for ‘Poetic’ — ironic given the blunt language I’d been using during the traffic situation — an Old Fashioned with Elijah Craig bourbon, which just about beat my partner’s ‘Imaginative’, a twist on a Gin Martini with a dash of absinthe. She smiled kindly at me after a few sips, a sure testament to its strength.
The sleep
The best bit about staying in luxury is of course getting into one of those big old beds and sleeping the sleep of the posh. Given our late night exploration of the hotel, it was a big mission to get the children settled down but once they were, it was game over for 10 hours straight. Some kind of Christmas miracle.
Morning time featured a breakfast of champions and, finally, a walk out onto the estate and fantasies of one day living in such a place. Well, the children may manage it one day, but for the rest of us, the Four Seasons exists to provide at least a treasured taste of the good life.
