Somerset has long been a favourite for the London weekend crowd – drawn, no doubt, by the prospect of engaging in a bit of rural cosplay by day, before retiring to chic, contemporary lodgings for a good evening feed and an expertly made Negroni or three. You can thank Babington House for popularising this more modern, more urbanised take on the country escape when it launched in 1998, and in its wake numerous similar properties have followed suit, in the process putting the county on the map as a cooler alternative to the Cotswolds.
Holm is the latest reason to make that lengthy pilgrimage down the M3. Having first established itself as one of the South-West’s finest places to eat, courtesy of chef and owner Nicholas Balfe, it now offers diners the chance to sleep off that hangover in very smart fashion indeed thanks to seven newly opened bedrooms upstairs.
