Reviews of Tylney Hall, Hook, United Kingdom

Review of Tylney Hall Hotel, by Daniel Scott

They don't make hotels like Tylney Hall in Hampshire any more. The Mansion House partly evokes an Upstairs Downstairs/Gosford Park kind of era, with creaky floorboards, surroundings of some warmth and splendour and fine food served by an army of attentive staff. Yet it is also bright and well equipped, with pools, golf course and health spa, to meet the leisure demands of the modern weekending guest.

As you crunch up the driveway on arrival you cannot help but be impressed by the grandness of the Grade 2 listed building that is Tylney Hall. In fact, although a building in some form has existed on this site since 1568, the Hall in its present state is as deceptively young as the late nineteenth century. It went through a number of incarnations too before becoming a hotel in the 1980s, from First World war hospital through the headquarters to a shipping line to a school between 1948-1985.

This four-star hotel comes into its full glory in spring and summer, with the outdoor pool in a walled courtyard being the focus of a lazy day with a book and the terrace at the back of the main house the pleasant location for evening drinks. On winter's days the comfortable lounges with their open fires, where guests gather before dinner to peruse the menu and order their food, and the library bar are the public spaces in which to relax. The lounges are defined by plenty of dark wood, gilt-framed portraits and small huddles of armchairs and couches. You might expect a dozy sort of ambience but actually it is fairly bright and brisk thanks partly to the chirpy service and partly to the amount of light coming into these public spaces through Tylney Hall's big windows. Some formality does pervade however with denim frowned upon after 6pm and men requiring a tie or a jacket for the dining room in the evening.

The extensive grounds are quintessentially English, with kempt lawns lined by giant Redwood trees stretching away from the back of the main house (with views over the undulating Hampshire countryside) and landscaped Italian, Dutch, Rose and Water gardens laid out around Tylney Hall and its outbuildings. The Water garden is particularly lovely, designed in the style of the famous landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll. On the outer edges of the grounds are wooded follies and an orchard producing a variety of apples. Whatever the time of year the gardens invite a longish stroll.

For the more active there is an adjacent 18 hole golf course and other outdoor pursuits such as archery and clay pigeon shooting are possible in the grounds. The aforementioned outdoor swimming pool and tennis courts are also available for the warmer months. Inside there is a small and perfectly pleasant indoor pool and Jacuzzi, a small but well-equipped gym and separate male and female saunas. There's a snooker room in this leisure area too with a full sized snooker table.

On another corner of the same courtyard as the leisure area is the small salon, offering manicures, pedicures, hairdressing and massages. It is advisable to book well in advance for treatments here particularly at weekends as it is very popular. For those who cannot bear to be parted from work there is also a small business room in the main house with free internet connection.

The hotel's Oak Room restaurant is very snug and the food of top quality, with an outstanding four-course set dinner menu at a reasonable £35 (excluding drinks). Head Chef Stephen Hine aims to present classical British cuisine with an innovative touch and it is hard to go past what is on offer on the Carving trolley, usually a very fine cut of beef or lamb. The cheese board and the desserts are also irresistible, with a variety of crème brulees, including raspberry and apricot, among what is on offer. Buffet breakfast provides an extensive choice including enjoyably creamy scrambled eggs and home-produced honey still clinging to its honeycomb.

All the rooms in Tylney Hall are amply proportioned and most have a soothing outlook onto the grounds and beyond that to the Hampshire countryside. You'll probably feel most baronial if you get a four-poster but there is a range of rooms in the main house and elsewhere to suit most tastes and upper-range budgets.

The suites away from the main building in the Orangerie give you the most opportunity to spread out in a self-contained way. Overlooking the duck-strewn water gardens, they give you the feeling of being in a plush country cottage. The suites offer a generous amount of space and are lightly but traditionally furnished, with a lounge on the ground floor and a four-poster bed on the upper floor and a Jacuzzi-bathroom adjacent, complete with Molton Brown toiletries. The windows run the length and breadth of the suite and you close the curtains right across the two floors at night. On our winter visit, we could imagine spilling outside our lounge in the summer for evening drinks beside the water gardens.

I'd been recommended the hotel by friends who raved about the friendly service, and were particularly impressed to be addressed by their names every time they passed reception. On our two day visit, we found the service a little impersonal and the memorising of our names by reception failed to occur. Unfortunately, the staff were also a little rushed.

It is true to say that this was the only intrusion into a very somnolent and restful weekend in the country, where traffic noise began to seem but a distant concern and bird song woke us in the morning. One other small grumble though and that is the 11am check out at weekends. Tylney is the sort of place you'll want to dwell and though, of course, you can migrate to the public areas, a bit more generosity on the time you need to vacate your room wouldn't go amiss.

This is a property in which you can sit back in some luxury and enjoy a dawdling weekend in the Hampshire countryside. It's an easy (maximum 90 minute) drive from London just off the M3 and typical old villages like Odiham are close by. With twelve conference rooms, including the rather magnificent oak-panelled Tylney suite, this would also be a fortuitous venue at which to be billeted while on business.