The Grove, Chandler's Cross, United Kingdom

When the fourth Earl of Clarendon remodelled his country house, the Grove, in 1839, the grand weekends got properly underway. Horace Walpole and Queen Victoria were guests who arrived on a Friday and stayed until Monday, as, some years later, was Vita Sackville West. Weekends are still big news at the Grove but now, guests pay for the pleasure and the extensive renovation has seen a giant black and white photograph of a giraffe installed where ancestral portraits used to hang.

The hotel, which opened in 2003, has ambitions well beyond the humble British country house hotel. And it is totally successful. Blessed with a Grade II listed mansion, 300 acres of grounds designed by Capability Brown, and an 18-minute train link to London, the new establishment has an added wing with another 200 rooms, a splendid green house with a collection of orchids and a casual café/restaurant, a walled garden, dedicated centre for kids, a stunning spa complex in the old stable block and a championship golf course.

There are three restaurants, from the posh a la carte Colette’s, to the Glasshouse which is a chic self-service restaurant with a difference – fresh ingredients are cooked to order in an open kitchen – and The Stables, a relaxed and informal eatery serving comfort food. Needless to say there is also a series of light, contemporary meeting and conference rooms, hugely popular with the meetings and conference crowd.

The interior is really what the Grove is all about. Martin Hulbert, the design director, has managed to combine contemporary with traditional elements - not to mention the downright quirky and kooky - without once losing his touch or making it jar. The public rooms are a light and airy mixture of commissioned pieces, antique furniture and eclectic high-design objects and concepts. Even the art is modern and not afraid to startle.

The rooms
The 27 bedrooms in the main mansion are the best place to stay if you can. Grand and totally individual, each has a different shape due to the architecture of the house, meaning that nothing is ever repeated. Beds are four-poster; each is a new take on a luxury classic and every detail delights.

And the greatest success of this glamorous, utterly original venture is that it is never earnest or intimidating: the Grove is a relaxed place, totally unstuffy and, as Hulbert rightly says ‘grand and groovy’ through and through.