Downton’s dog-loving neighbour
WE’RE outside Highclere Castle, AKA Downton Abbey, when Lady Carnarvon strolls across the cobbles where visitors are sipping tea in the spring sunshine.
With a looming deadline for her next book she’s on her way upstairs to write but stops to chat about her husband’s ancestral home, its starring role in the ITV series and how they managed to shoot the latest film during Covid.
I tell her we have a room ten minutes away at the newly refurbished Georgian coaching inn, the
Hare & Hounds, a mile or so outside Newbury. ‘I hear it’s lovely. I’m doing a gin tasting and talk there soon,’ says Lady Carnarvon.
It is indeed lovely, and a superb place to sample a Highclere Martini or two, using Highclere Castle Gin made with fruit from the castle’s Victorian orangery, with oats to soften the finish.
And while the 30-bedroom inn doesn’t have Highclere’s majestic proportions, it has been beautifully restored. Although there is a Downton room in the eaves, and The Highclere Suite has a copper roll-top bath in the room, the nods to its neighbour stop there. Instead, as its name suggests, the dogfriendly Hare & Hounds is more about country pursuits than country homes. That means hunting themes, antlers crafted as lights and a guntoting hare immortalised in the private dining room. Everything has been beautifully finished with a sense of irreverent fun that can be seen in the portraits of military personnel with dogs’ heads, hares’ ears sticking out from lampshades and witty slogans on walls.
There are modern touches, too, including a wine-dispensing machine where you pick your poison and fill your own glass.
Next door, the enormous, timberframed dining room is an atmospheric place to eat, with features playing on the pub’s proximity to Newbury racecourse.
Outside, its former stables house some of the bedrooms. More rooms are found in other outbuildings, some with small outside seating areas. All have thoughtful touches, including fresh milk and complimentary gin, a Roberts radio and ear plugs in a box by the bed (the pub is on a busy road). The swish bathrooms come with Bramley toiletries and impressive showers.
If there’s one point for improvement, it’s the food. Breakfast is good, with sourdough bread and a choice of hot dishes alongside a buffet that includes cheese and cold meats.
At dinner, though, while my pea and asparagus risotto gets a thumbs up, my son’s prawn cocktail starter with fennel and pickled apple lacks taste and his cote de boeuf is unevenly grilled.
It’s not quite up to Downton’s cook Mrs Patmore’s standards, we think.
B&B doubles from £120 a night (hareandhoundsnewbury.co.uk).