With so many of us forced to holiday at home this year, that most English of institutions, the country house hotel, has been experiencing something of a renaissance. The number of guests desperate for a slice of upper crust hospitality after months of slumming it at home has rocketed so you may struggle to book even the humblest of maid’s quarters this summer. That said, my advice is to steer well clear.
For all their bucolic grandeur, these odes to outdated class structures have a tendency to trigger a toxic combination of unwarranted snobbery and ‘what-can-we-get-away-with’ mediocrity. The hushed, awkward reverence that insists we remain on our best behaviour makes me want to lob loaded cake-stands at the fake family portraits.
Which of us hasn’t at some point yearned to be a member of the landed set, with their wellington-booted insouciance? It’s why we feast on Downton Abbey and creep around National Trust piles in our finest fleeces.
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