What’s the draw?
As a nation, we’re impressively mediocre at most things – but we do excel in several. We’re talented at overcooking meat, skilled over-apologisers and expert queuers. What we’re best at above all, however, is mastering the country house hotel. So much so that a mere cosy hearth, idyllic view or homemade butter no longer satiates our countrified cravings. God no. We want biodynamic gardens synchronised with the lunar cycle, on-site Guernsey cows with udders poised for the milking, state-of-the-art spas, 1,200-bottle wine cellars, boating ponds and in-bedroom homemade cordials. We want Heckfield Place.
The Long Room
A painless hour-long train journey from London or a 50-minute boat from Southampton cruise terminal if you’re feeling nautical, Heckfield Place is situated in a secluded corner of Hampshire. It’s unsurprising to learn that the hotel’s eight-month restoration morphed into a nine-year renovation, with every square foot of this grade-II Georgian mansion painstakingly conceived. Walls are dressed with 400 pieces of art, vases overflowing with blooms from the Market Garden and glass-windowed cabinets lined with novels, trinkets and Scrabble (with accompanying dictionaries to quash pesky word inventors). The 45 bedrooms are restful, biscuit-hued snuggeries that feel rustic without being overly twee.
Sink into the freestanding tub seasoned with lavender bath salts, brush your toes over the enormous mats woven from East Anglian rushes and raid the minifridge stocked with carafes of cordials, Heckfield IPA, shortbreads and smoked almonds. Legend has it that if you sport a gingham smock, recline on your chaise longue, and gaze out onto the 438 acres of Hampshire countryside, you’ll be mistaken as the face of Toast’s AW24 campaign.
The food and drink
Heckfield Place is a locavore’s nirvana. Milk comes from the hotel’s herd of Guernsey cows; cheese is made from that same milk a mile down the road. Lamb comes from the Home Farm’s pastures. On-site chickens lay the eggs. Bees that buzz around the fruit orchards make the honey. The 100% biodynamic-certified Market Garden supplies the hotel with vegetables, fruit and flowers. Even waste produce is funnelled into concoctions for the hotel’s Moon Bar, such as rhubarb and elderflower cordials, wild garlic leaf tincture, citrus sapling vodka, rosehip liquor, and orange bitters.
Grilled Langoustines with new season two fields olive oil at Hearth
Marle and Hearth are the hotel’s two restaurants, overseen by renowned culinary director and Petersham Nurseries alum Skye Gyngell. The former, home to a Michelin Green Star, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner with the option of a seven-course ‘Earth Menu’ sculpted from Heckfield’s surplus produce. The latter, Hearth, resembles a Pieter Aertsen oil painting with an open kitchen centred around a crackling fire. Wicker baskets overflow with citrus fruits, hunks of meat smoke above the embers and fists of thyme hang from brick walls. On the menu is seasonal cookery showcasing the surrounding land's bounty without unnecessary frills and frippery. Opt for the broad bean cavatelli rich with guanciale and black pepper or cold rice pudding topped with fudgy roasted apricots if you want a taste of cucina povera (albeit with prices that might give nonna an aneurysm).
The hotel’s bar pays homage to the biodynamic gardens' dependence on the lunar phases with a gigantic moon-like disco ball hanging from the ceiling. The menu is equally sparkling (and dance-inducing), with a one-of-a-kind list of cocktails made using liquors, syrups, tinctures, and infusions from the garden. The rosehip pisco sour, made velvety with egg white and savoury with foraged pine cordial, accompanied by a bowl of homemade crisps, is how all good evenings should commence.
What else
The endless line of wellies in the hotel’s boot room might look like the massacre of a hundred dog walkers, but they’re poised for the taking so you can snoop around the expansive grounds. When you’re not rowing out onto the lower lake in the fleet of two wooden boats with a picnic supplied by the hotel, taking a tour around the market gardens or snaffling popcorn at one of the private film screenings at The Assembly, don your towelling robe and set your coordinates to The Bothy by Wildsmith. This award-winning glass-clad spa, which opened its doors in 2023, sports a serotonin-inducing array of facilities and treatments, including a chlorine-free infinity pool, outdoor hydrotherapy pool, steam room and sauna. Make sure to check out the schedule of classes too, including yoga, pilates, wild swimming, meditation, breathwork and even forest bathing.
The sauna at The Bothy
Alongside usual proceedings this summer, Heckfield Place marks the centenary of biodynamic farming with a series of events curated across the estate. From Farm Suppers and foraged cocktail-making workshops to talks on the biodynamic planting calendar and manure and fertility, this thought-provoking schedule of events is worth a peruse.
For more information visit heckfieldplace.com
