The Newt in Somerset – a working farm turned Three-Key retreat

In the folds of Somerset dairy country, between Bruton and Castle Cary, The Newt occupies a Georgian manor that was home to the Hobhouse family for more than two centuries before becoming, in 2019, one of England's most complete country-house hotels. It belongs to Karen Roos and Koos Bekker, the duo behind Cape Town's Babylonstoren, who spent six years rebuilding Hadspen House and its surrounding farm buildings into a 40-room estate hotel set across a 2,000-acre working farm. The MICHELIN Guide awards it Three Keys, its mark of an extraordinary stay. Inside the grounds, Georgian rooms give way to a reconstructed Roman villa, a honeybee attraction known as the Beezantium, and cyder orchards holding more than 265 varieties of apple. Three restaurants draw on the estate's own kitchen gardens, cattle and cider cellar. It is, by some distance, the most ambitious hotel Somerset has produced in a generation.

01The house

Hadspen House was built in the seventeenth century and remodelled in Georgian times, sustaining the Hobhouse family for more than two centuries. In the 1970s the designer Penelope Hobhouse created an Arts and Crafts garden there and wrote her first book, The Country Garden, about it. The garden was later tended by Sandra and Nori Pope, renowned for their colourful planting.

Karen Roos and Koos Bekker, the duo behind Cape Town's Babylonstoren, bought the estate and spent six years rebuilding it, reopening as The Newt in August 2019. The restoration was a collective effort: Simon Morray-Jones Architects worked on Hadspen House, while Benjamin + Beauchamp Architects transformed the Upper Yard stables and granary into guest rooms, and Richard Parr Associates reimagined the Farmyard, turning nine agricultural buildings into suites, a pool, spa and bar. Throughout, the palette stays true to the place — Hadspen stone, Blue Lias, oak and lime plaster that age gracefully.

02Rooms and suites

The 40 rooms split between two distinct moods. Hadspen House holds twelve rooms a short stroll from the gardens and spa, ranging from the grandest garden-view rooms to loft rooms under the eaves; the former Stable Yard adds eleven more, converted from the estate's working stables into design-led hideaways, some with log burners, and a Clock House with its own communal sitting room for families.

Insider tip

Non-hotel guests may book the Botanical Rooms; dogs are not allowed anywhere on the estate.

Half a mile away, across the cyder orchards, the Farmyard occupies a former dairy farm cupped in a sun-drenched combe. Its Farmyard and Farmhouse rooms keep original agricultural features — exposed beams, a golden stone patina — and seven of the most luxurious come with their own steam pods; a two-bedroom Room with a View suits families, and the four-bedroom Shatwell House can be taken over entirely. Every room, in either wing, arrives with a complimentary in-room larder and a chilled bottle of the estate's own Winston cider.

For greater seclusion, Yarlington Lodge introduces three new country residences – both secluded and sociable – with a Regency rectory at its core, set within its own twelve acres with the addition of a private chef and butlers on hand.

03Where to eat

The Botanical Rooms is the estate's formal dining room, split between the wood-panelled Oak Room and the light-filled Glass Room at the side of the house.

Across the orchards, Farmyard Kitchen occupies an old threshing barn, where chefs cook sharing-style dishes over wood fire in an open kitchen set at the heart of the room. For lunch, the Garden Café looks out over the kitchen garden and the glasshouse known as the Parabola.

04The bar

Hadspen House keeps its own small rituals: a Newt gin and tonic on the terrace, a fire in the Library, a turn as DJ in the colourful Croquet Room, and a complimentary cream tea served daily in the Drawing Room. In the evenings, the hotel Bar turns over to live jazz.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Hadspen Spa is built around an indoor-outdoor hydrotherapy pool, a marble steam room, a garden-view sauna and a halotherapy room, with a traditional Turkish-style hammam below and treatments drawing on herbs grown in its own Medieval Herb Garden. Changing rooms are underfloor-heated, and a light-filled lounge gives guests space to pause between treatments.

A well-equipped gym and a full wellness programme of yoga, pilates and HIIT run alongside a five-kilometre running route across the estate, with guided wild swims in the lake through summer. Guests staying at the Farmyard have their own indoor pool, open to families from eight in the morning until eight at night, while still able to use the treatments and classes at Hadspen.

06The neighbourhood

Bruton has become one of the more unexpected centres of English contemporary culture, its population still numbering only around 3,000 inhabitants. The pull is Hauser & Wirth, whose gallery delights art lovers with its sculpture garden and regularly changing exhibitions, and, a short drive away, Merlin Labron-Johnson's Michelin-starred restaurant Osip. On the high street, Caro, a seamlessly curated concept store, and At the Chapel, for baked goods, round out an afternoon away from the estate.

07Making the most of a stay

Beyond the hotel, the wider estate repays a full day. The Newt takes its name, somewhat improbably, from a resident colony of great crested newts that still occupy its ponds. In the orchards, more than 265 types of apple go into the estate's cyder, pressed in a cellar guests can visit; nearby, the Roman Villa museum sits over foundations excavated on the estate, with a full-scale reconstruction, Villa Ventorum, staffed in period dress and furnished down to its mosaics and frescoes, and a Thermopolium serving Roman-inspired dishes.

The accolades have followed quickly: alongside its Three MICHELIN Keys, The Newt won the Carlo Alberto Best Boutique Hotel Award 2023 at the inaugural World's 50 Best Hotels awards, ranked as the 37th best hotel in the world, and has since picked up Condé Nast Traveller's Readers' Choice award for best UK hotel outside London. Conservation runs just as deep: the estate reintroduces red squirrels, rewilds hedgehogs, rehabilitates birds of prey and grows native bee populations, with a full-time entomologist studying its insects.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.