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| Hospitality Today | Winter 2020
(which will, after all, never see any
threshing) was aligned to the wind too,
he replied that it was. Of course it was –
everything here is as it should be.
Visitors to the gardens (who paid £15
for a season ticket this year) can also
do a ‘cider tour’ and visit the ‘Cidery’
(we were told that was the word – like
the “Winery” you can visit at Koos
Bekker’s Babylonstoren estate in South
Africa), and there is also a glass-walled
café with panoramic views, and a
delicatessen with a cheese room and a
salt-lined meat ageing room.
At the end of the afternoon when the
garden visitors leave, the whole magical
place is the preserve of the hotel guests
– which makes the hotel a unique
destination for lovers of gardens and
bucolic landscapes.
The hotel’s “Botanical Rooms”
restaurant specialises in mainly plant-
based dishes using produce from the
estate and local farms, and carefully
sourced meat and fish.
Inspired by the Georgian setting and
the Newt’s spectacular Kitchen Garden,
dishes are largely locally sourced, just-
picked seasonal fruit and vegetables.
A unique grill prepares “carefully
husbanded” venison, fish and meat,
some from the Estate itself.
There is also fresh bread and pastries
from their in-house artisan Bakery,
dairy from Somerset cows and honey
from local bees.
The Sunday Times said: “In stand-and-
gawp juxtaposition, are a walled kitchen
garden and a futuristic gym fronted by
what my valet assures me is the largest
single pane of glass in Europe.
“Oversized glass fitted into toffee-
coloured stone is a motif at the Newt,
and there it is again in the spa… where
a converted cowshed harbours a softly lit
indoor/outdoor pool that could be heated
by Instagram likes alone. The outdoor bit
is particularly special: it has sides like an
aquarium tank, volcanic bubbles at the
press of a button, and a temperature that
makes the falling rain fizz when I sneak
back after dark.”
At the Spa, guests can indulge their
body with a splash in the hammam
and nourish their skin in the ‘rasul
mud chamber’. And soak in the steam
room, dry in the sauna and clear their
breathing passages in the Himalayan
salt room.
thenewtinsomerset.com