The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
A family hotel in top gear
What is fast becoming a Cotswolds classic has something for everyone, says Hattie Garlick
Do you ever get that feeling that you’re on a totally different wavelength to the rest of humankind? It happened to me, recently, in the middle of a field.
Feeling peckish, my family followed signs leading to a pretty lane lined not with wildflowers but estate cars. Given the human traffic, we imagined a festival, or a feast for the eyes, at its end. But no. There stood a shed, about the size of a modest double garage, and a 45-minute wait to get inside.
“What’s in there?” breathed the nine-year-old, certain it must be Santa. “Diddly Squat,” said the husband. True, both literally and (it seemed) figuratively. Happy pilgrims were being spat out from Jeremy Clarkson’s farm shop clutching meagre (and expensive) bottles of “cow juice” (milk).
As a bookish type who associates cars mainly with the school run, I may have this wrong, but isn’t the Top Gear ethos about tearing round fields, getting the adrenalin going? Not standing stock in one, spending a small fortune?
Anyway. I have found a hotel that might be just the thing, should your family encompass people whose ideas of fun are as divergent as this. Called the Fish, it is just half an hour away from Diddly Squat, deep inside the 500-acre private Farncombe Estate.
It’s actually less hotel, more a collection of accommodation options scattered across a hill with dazzling views. There are family-sized treehouses accessed by rope bridges (the most exciting option). Shepherd’s huts sit in a secluded, adults-only area (with “press for bubbly” buttons beside their hot tubs), and the Coach House has more conventional country-house hotel rooms, some freshly renovated and interconnecting.
Once your kids know their way around the television remote, interconnecting rooms are the gold standard for holidaying families. These ones are lovely – fresh, contemporary, in a hygge style that would feel a little “off the peg” if the Fish wasn’t owned by the Philip-Sorensen family: Danes who can thus stake convincing claim to the Scandi term.
Besides, the genius here lies not in the design, but in the fact that up to three bedrooms can interconnect, instead of two. I have no idea why this is not done more. For three-generation trips, or large families with exceedingly deep pockets, it is brilliant.
The only guests who might struggle are toddlers. It’s a steep traipse back and forth to the hotel’s heart: a wooden-clad “lodge” with broad decks overlooking the hills, a good restaurant, laidback lounge and moody bar. The lodge also has a library of heavy-duty wellies and guides to the myriad walks past spires, sheep and chi-chi villages.
The children’s playground, however, felt forlorn and neglected when the nine-year-old recced; the mutt was gloriously happy, though – dogs have a dedicated play area, with agility equipment, plus a deep rolltop bath complete with canine shampoo.
The mutt and I would be blissfully content with a weekend of walks. Sadly, we’d brought the other family members with us; the hotel is expanding its programme of activities for thrillseekers and down in the ominously named “adventure field” a brand-new hovercraft awaited. Dog banished to the bedroom, the humans took turns hurtling around. The instructor coached us through an earpiece in our headsets, recorded our times and revealed them in a finale. This was the closest our family had ever (and will ever) come to Top Gear’s celebrity time trials. The biggest surprise? Not my position, sadly, but the fact that I absolutely loved it.
The next day, we had a private archery session, in which I achieved the same inglorious position on the leaderboard. There is also axe-throwing, clay-shooting and other activities to make the hearts of 12-year-olds soar.
If, like me, yoga’s more your “sport”, there are classes to take part in and a tennis court you can book (though the £15 charge seems a little unnecessary). In fact, the estate’s so vast that it hosts two other luxury hotels and several self-catering properties. This flexibility is the real beauty of staying at the Fish as a family. More sedate relatives could stay at Foxhill Manor, an old-school country-house hotel up a winding lane, or at the spa hotel, Dormy House. It is not widely advertised (to avoid crowding), but with early booking you can have a few hours in the small infinity pool and thermal rooms (we did – it was glorious). Wherever you are staying on the estate, you can eat and drink in any bar or restaurant and charge it to your room. So everyone’s happy. Fans of Clarkson, spa treatments, country walks – and most especially, dogs.
A family of four can stay at the Fish from £295, B&B