The Newt, Somerset
Garden-lovers rhapsodise about The Newt in Somerset, a bucolic estate set around a handsome Georgian manor. Successive green-fingered enthusiasts have shaped the gardens over two centuries, from the Victorian horticulturalist Margaret Hobhouse to Patrice Taravella, whose beautiful plantings have given the gardens a new lease of life in recent years.
Whether you stay in ochre-coloured Hadspen House itself or in the luxuriously converted stables next door, you’ll want to spend as much time as possible in the beautiful gardens. Wander the Parabola, a curved, walled garden at the heart of the estate harbouring an apple tree maze (you can sample the fruit in the hotel’s homemade ‘cyder’); play badminton on the lawn, surrounded by a cloud-like yew hedge affectionately nicknamed ‘Old Knobbly’ by the hotel’s gardeners; or explore the glazed Winter Garden with its exotic orchids and succulents. The Roman Villa
