FIONA DUNCAN

Summer Lodge

Despite the masks and safety precautions, a post-lockdown return to was a welcome treat

It was as a tough assignment that I plumped for Summer Lodge as my first post-lockdown hotel. “I’d better chose a tricky one”, I thought to myself. And at a time when hotels must try to deliver safe, clinical, sanitised, Covid-free hospitality, but at the same time make it feel as enveloping as before, where trickier than Summer Lodge? How can it continue to revel in a plethora of fripperies and decorative excess in the days of the new, minimal, scrubbed-clean normal?

Summer Lodge is a hotel I have known for 40 years. Under its previous ownership, it was a low-key country house hotel with lawn tennis and a pool in the garden. Then, in 2006 after a two-year stint in the beauty parlour, it emerged as Summer Lodge Country House Hotel, Restaurant and Spa, with a world-class sommelier, electric buggies for the luggage, and an injection of decorative Botox courtesy of its new owner, Bea Tollman of Red Carnation Hotels.

“Summer Lodge,” I wrote at the time, “is going to the ball, descending the stairs in a rustle of silk, a cloud of perfume and a new perm.”

If there’s a wall that can be covered in fabric, a sofa that can be obscured by cushions, a lamp that can be encased in pleated silk or a curtain that can be swagged and tassled, you may be sure that Tollman will see to it.

What would Covid life make of such a place with its profusion of patterns – on the carpets, the fabric-draped ceilings, and the padded walls?

Of the gilt mirrors, brass fenders, drinks trolleys, globes, paintings of dogs, illustrated books, needlepoint cushions, pleats and fringes galore; of the fulsome cream tea laid out in the afternoon; of fairy lights in the trees, statues in the shrubbery and comfortable bedrooms with every conceivable extra, from fleece-covered hot water bottles to sewing kits?

I arrived in my old Peugeot at the same time as a pair in a roaring Ferrari (most fellow guests last weekend were faithful regulars who couldn’t wait to return), to be greeted by the managers, husband and wife Jack and Alex Mackenzie, in masks. If, in the time that the pandemic has kept me peacefully at home, I have sometimes had difficulty in connecting with its reality, then being welcomed back to Summer Lodge by a man in a mask, busily smiling with his eyes, was a stark reminder.

Whether they needed to be wearing those masks to protect guests (why shouldn’t guests also do so to protect the staff?) is another question; everyone instinctively, I noticed, kept at least two metres apart from one another throughout my stay. Later in the day, Jonathan Raggett, managing director of Red Carnation, arrived with a consignment of visors, and most staff swapped their masks for those (though not all, as some found the visors uncomfortable). They had little blue peaks, like baseball caps. “Mon Dieu! I look like a Playmobil figure”, exclaimed Eric Zweibel, that delightful world-class sommelier, not without justice.

In terms of safety, the staff had thought everything through; even the pen at check-in went into a box, ready to be sanitised, after I had used it. A one-way system was in place around the hotel; menus were disposable; 9 Fore Street, Evershot, Dorchester DT2 0JR (01935 482000; telegraph. co.uk/tt-summerlodge).

MEET THE TEAM

Fiona began writing about hotels nearly 30 years ago, when she launched the Charming Small Hotels guides. She has been reviewing hotels regularly for

for the past 15 years. .

wine lists sent by email; no staff entering bedrooms; no touching of luggage unless asked. The visible difference was that many of Tollman’s books, objects and ornaments were missing and the place did look unusually bare; the big news, for those who love them, is that they will be back in less than two weeks’ time.

Next week, the whole hotel, the first to do so in Britain, will be electrostatically treated with a protective antivirus coat using an American system specially developed for cruise ships, called Premium Purity. The coat is applied annually and thereafter housekeepers use a special salt solution (no chemicals) for regular cleaning. From pot plants to china dogs, all Mrs Tollman’s bits and pieces will be put back in place and sprayed with this antivirus coating, safe to the touch, we are assured, for a year.

So here’s the big question: what does it feel like to be in a Covid-era country house hotel? The answer, in my experience: if not exactly normal given the rules, restrictions, PPE and so on, nevertheless perfectly safe, comfortable and enjoyable.

And, after three long months, it was a real treat to have food cooked and wine poured by someone else, especially when the food and the wine is as exceptional as it is at Summer Lodge. I’m afraid it’s time for the fussy, old-fashioned decoration, now looking decidedly tired, to go, but otherwise it’s what country house hotels are all about – and thank heaven for them.

Doubles from £235 per night, including breakfast. Access possible for guests using wheelchairs