Hospitality Today Winter 2020 (#40) | Page 8

8 | 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