I’m smitten. The old heart has skipped a beat.
I have, in fact, known the object of my affection for many years, but whenever we met in the past I was always reminded of my mother’s crushing comment about my very first boyfriend: “Nice, dear, but pity about his wet handshake.”
Wet no more. A great transformation has been carried out, with lifesaving injections of personality, character and bonhomie. If you’d been seeking out, staying in and writing about British hotels for as many decades as I have – and mourning the ever-reducing number of small, charming, privately owned, kindly (by today’s standards) priced country establishments – you’d feel amorous too.
Ask Charlie Luxton, co-owner of the just-opened Teffont House, what his favourite ever hotel is and he’ll say the long-departed Abbey in Penzance, owned and run by Sixties model Jean Shrimpton. It was mine, too, and we talked of our fondness for that comforting, free-spirited haven during my stay. “Teffont House is my Abbey,” said Luxton. “It’s for you and me.”
How wonderful to find a new address that’s privately owned, traditional, created with love and commitment and, yes, kindly priced. It stands in an idyllic spot in Wiltshire’s secretive Nadder Valley, where a chalk stream, billowing cloud-pruned hedging and fruit trees trained up an old wall run alongside the single-track street in tiny Teffont Evias. Before it became a nice but wet hotel, then called Howard’s House, it was the home of artist Henry Howard, who created the property’s lovely garden in the 1920s.
Having been neglected in recent years, it was pretty enough but needed to be fully restored to its former glory to become a true English paradise again. Today, the lawn is dotted with deckchairs and two summer houses, one stocked with equipment for drawing and watercolour painting, the other with telescopes and star maps (this is a Dark Sky area). Teffont House also offers my idea of the perfect spa: a cabin (with sauna and cold plunge next to it) for delicious treatments using Bramley face and body products. Across the road there’s a new croquet lawn and badminton court.
Everything else is pretty much perfect for Abbey-onados like me. There are 17 bedrooms, some located in the house and some in the coach house and cottages, all decorated by Luxton and the talented interior designer Natasha Hidvégi. Painted in chalky colours, dotted with vintage finds, equipped with superb beds and Roberts radios tuned soothingly to BBC Radio 3 on arrival, each space is homely and restful, though the (in my view unnecessary) wall-mounted TVs slightly break the spell.
My room (Two) had a meltingly beautiful view of Teffont Manor and the soaring spire of St Michael’s church. Downstairs, the sitting room and bar are comfortable, cosy and characterful, with the owners’ notable generosity of spirit in evidence via piles of newspapers, decanters of complimentary port, brandy and whisky, and even a vintage cigarette box: press the lid and the cigarettes pop up, tempting me, for the first time in years, to wander on to the lawn with a glass of rosé and a fag. The Shrimp, as Jean Shrimpton was known, would surely have approved.
A new, elegantly furnished glass extension overlooking the garden is the place for convivial dinners, which are cooked by a team previously employed at various Pig hotels. Talk about feeling like a home: I invited friends who live nearby to join me and we kept the waiters up, especially delightful Sai, far too late. As I say, it’s that kind of place.
We all loved the food, especially garden-herb fritters, linguine with octopus, chalk-stream trout and pork tenderloin with gooseberries. Packed lunches are available, and rarebit toasties and Victoria sponge are on offer at tea, followed by a gong summoning guests to drinks before dinner. Kippers and smoked-haddock kedgeree were on the menu the next morning.
It’s no surprise to me that partners Luxton, Dan Brod and Matt Greenlees have pulled such a blinder with their first proper hotel, though. Since they opened The Beckford Arms in 2009, they have launched four more pubs, two Bath restaurants, a just-opened restaurant with rooms in Corsham, this hotel, plus the successful Bramley bath and skincare range created by Luxton’s wife, Chloë.
They prefer to rely on humour, high standards and value for money rather than fluctuating room prices and social media. As a result, each place stands out from the crowd; monthly newsletters are often laugh-out-loud funny; and they deserve the prestigious industry award they have recently received for the UK’s best pub and bar group.
Teffont Evias is a privately owned village and estate that needs some TLC (for instance on the slightly run-down appearance of Teffont Manor, now flats). Having invested in the revamp of Teffont House, it’s hoped that both the estate’s owners, who live elsewhere and the Beckford Group will benefit from this heartbeat-skipping new address.
Doubles from £155. Teffont House, Holt Lane, Teffont Evias, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 5RJ (01722 696900)