Hotel of the month: Heckfield Place, Hampshire

Was it four years ago or five that I drove to Hampshire for a hardhat tour of Heckfield Place? To be honest, I can’t really remember, though I do recall a subsequent sense of disappointment that what was promised to be England’s most exciting new country house hotel at the time, never opened. Who knows what the true story is behind that, and who cares. The only thing that matters now is that Heckfield Place is, at last, open for business and however long the wait has been, it has definitely been worth it.

This is a hotel that speaks volumes about the brilliance of certain British interior designers – in this instance, Ben Thompson, who trained under Ilse Crawford and worked with her on the beautiful Ett Hem hotel in Stockholm, before taking on the challenge of Heckfield some three years ago. Clearly the budget Ben had at his disposal helped enormously in the way he has fashioned Heckfield’s interiors, lavishing the place with design gems from the likes of Rose Uniacke, Soane, Pinch, Benchmark, George Smith, Felicity Irons, Chelsea Textiles and many, many more, as well as commissioning numerous bespoke pieces. He also had one of the finest private collections of modern British art to play with (courtesy of Heckfield’s Hong Kong Chinese owner) which is displayed throughout in rooms and corridors and public spaces.

As a late-Georgian mansion, Heckfield Place has fine bones and perhaps an even finer setting, amongst rolling, Grade II listed parkland – known seductively as the Pleasure Grounds - graced with majestic trees, woodland walks, lakes and fountains. There’s an immense walled garden, too, a huge spa in the making (to be launched in 2019) and beyond the garden boundary a farm and bio-dynamic market garden which supplies the hotel kitchen. The eco-credentials are extremely impressive, but that’s another story. So, too, is the food served in the hotel’s two restaurants, Marle and Hearth, conceived and created by eminent chef, Skye Gyngell to reflect similar organic and bio-dynamic principles.

On the inside the hotel manages to be both elegant and informal, sophisticated and homely, modern and yet surprisingly rustic. Antiques and well-worn Persian carpets sit happily alongside contemporary fixtures and fittings; the colour palette is at times dark and daring, but successfully so, and the mixture of pattern and texture in curtains, cushions, headboards, blankets, wallcoverings and rugs all brilliantly thought through. But it’s also the tiny details which make the difference – the corn dollies in each room, the Scottish Jacob blankets on each bed, the books, the jars of homemade pickles, cordials and jams, the random vases and ceramics providing decorative flourishes, the flowers, the gourds, the planters – all so seemingly haphazard, yet immensely stylish.

And when I leave, having longed to pack almost the entire contents of my bedroom into the back of my car and having taken enough photographs to inspire an ambitious redecoration programme in my home, I am handed (as all guests will be) a beautiful leather luggage tag monogrammed with my initials. So clever, I think, and so chic.

Heckfield Place, Hampshire RG27 0LD (heckfieldplace.com; 01189326868). Rooms start from £350 per night including breakfast and afternoon tea.