HOTEL OF THE WEEK ASHDOWN PARK HOTEL
DOWNTON Abbey has a lot to answer for. We’ve seen how grand houses were run, with an army of below-stairs staff, white-gloved and forelock tugging. It’s a bygone age and secretly we wish we too could have a Mr Carson or Mrs Patmore.
And that’s the experience the Ashdown Park hotel would like to deliver. It has a long and sweeping driveway leading to a grand old house and 186-acre estate that reaches out into the Ashdown Forest on the Sussex/Kent border. Recently a fitness centre and spa, with an indoor swimming pool has been added to complement their 18hole golf course.
Staff were friendly and greeted me with a smile (they didn’t quite fawn and bow but if I’d asked, I’m sure they would have).
The house has the ambience of a rather splendid stately home, yet has overwhelming warmth and charm.The 106 bedrooms and suites are well-apportioned and decorated in a style that embraces modernity but remains true to its past. In other words, you can sit on your opulent bed, feeling like Little Lord Fauntleroy while channel hopping on a flat screen TV.
My suite was vast, with floor to ceiling windows and a decadent marble-panelled ensuite.
Eating at the Anderida restaurant is a gastronomic delight. It is quite formal though, with gentlemen asked to refrain from wearing jeans, but the food is to die for. For something a little less formal, there are light refreshments served in one of the numerous drawing rooms, or on the terrace, with afternoon tea being a silver-service affair.
It would be all too easy for the Ashdown Park to be a pastiche of a country hotel: a big imposing building trading on its picturesque setting, but it doesn’t.
Whether it is for a long weekend, or longer stay, Ashdown is a good option. Plus, it’s only a 90-minute drive from the centre of London. ACROSS 1 A real idiot, someone who is clueless (Yiddish - slang) (9) 6 The second month in the Jewish civil calendar (4) 9 The seventh month of the Jewish civil calendar (7) 10 Ancient Jewish ritual of washing a body prior to burial (Hebrew) (7) 11 The twelfth month of the Jewish civil calendar (4) 12 Non-religious belief (10) 14 Mareshah’s father (! Chron. 4:21) (6) 15 The eighth month of the Jewish civil calendar (8) 18 Traditional annual day of Jewish mourning (Hebrew) (5,1’2) 19 Knock back pill if you want a boost (6) 22 Large IAF Air Force base in the Jezreel valley (5,5) 24 The sixth month of the Jewish civil calendar (4) 26 Say, use your eyes! (7) 27 Set of articles awaiting delivery? (7) 28 Not worried about money? That’s a good one! (4) 29 Russian-Jewish winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physics (1908-1968) (3,6) DOWN 1 Chasidic meeting-room for prayer (Yiddishvariant spelling) (7) 2 A crazy idea, a nonsense (Yiddish) (9) 3 Famous ancient Roman arson suspect! (4) 4 Inured to change, being bankrupted (6) 5 Multiple rocket launcher first fielded by the Soviet Union in WW2 (8) 6 ‘I don’t know’ (Yiddish) (3,4,3) 7 Ancient Roman money that’s picked up after valuer drops odd ones (5) 8 Amon’s father (1 Chron. 4:20) (6) 13 The ‘Giving of The Law’ at Sinai (Hebrew) (5,5) 16 Girl I went out with proved true (9) 17 Shallum’s son (Jer. 32:7) (8) 18 In heart of Vietnam, blunder causes extreme fear (6) 20 Standard location not fully set up for arriviste (7) 21 The third month of the Jewish civil year (6) 23 Mahli’s father (1 Chron. 24:30) (5) 25 Many varieties of talking bird (4)