Gardens and grounds
You can measure gardens and grounds in acreage, or you can just tot up how much fun
they provide. But at Lotus Cottage and Spa, you get both. You’ve three acres of fabulous frivolity here filled with football nets, croquet hoops and swinging chairs.
Eat out on the coal barbecue around the 16-seater table, chew the fat around the firepit, book some yoga on the lawn. Enjoy the outdoors whatever the weather with the fully retractable doors on the conservatory.
Spa and living spaces
Indoor living spaces here are elegant and contemporary, comfortable and cosy. But dwelling on them would be to ignore the elephant in the garden. Follow the conservatory walkway to your own boutique health retreat. At Lotus Cottage, every day’s a spa day.
Everything’s centred around a sizeable bubbling, boiling spa pool with room for six sitting and six more standing. Get your cossie on in the changing room, relax on the recliners with fluffy towels, sweat it out in the three-person sauna. Book a massage or body treatment. If it feels like a real spa, it’s because it is one.
If you can hoist yourself out of the hot tub, head indoors to the garden room to binge blockbusters on the 55” smart TV offering full Sky package, NOW TV, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. Stream and surf on the Gigaclear fibre running at up to 100mbps. Set your soundtrack on the Sonos, neck a Nespresso, chuck some more logs on the fire.
Cooking and dining
Cook like a pro on the two-hob Aga and NEFF fan oven. Or get an actual pro in and call Joshua Todd, the Luxury Private Chef, for menus that include halibut, pancetta and sorrel crumb, or rabbit and mussel paella. Stock up the American-style fridge-freezer with tapas and cheese from The Deli at Castle Ashby and fizz from The Wine Cellar.
Living in the garden room? Lucky you. You even get your own kitchenette with fridge. From there, it’s a quick hop to the coal barbecue and the 16-seater table. Stay out for the summer around the firepit on the terrace. Keep your gin cool with the ice machine and top things off with a Nespresso.
You’ve tasty takeaways to order from Khandan Indian Restaurant and Yumeijin Chinese and private platters from The Deli at Castle Ashby. Head out to The Bull in Olney for 28 day-aged Aberdeen Angus burger or southern-fried buttermilk boneless chicken thighs with sticky barbecue Boston beans.
The Half Moon at Grendon’s a good bet for pork tenderloin or New Jersey chicken, and the Falcon in Castle Ashby’s your venue for top nosh, with a tasting menu that includes diver-caught Orkney scallop and ‘first of the spring’ truffles. Sit out under cover at Locanda Gabriella for cocktails and cicchetti or enjoy Indian at Maya in Olney.
Bedrooms
Wherever you nod off, you’ll sleep wrapped in a blanket of silence in the Northamptonshire countryside atop memory-foam mattresses, in between 300-thread-count sheets. Choose from five bedrooms in the main house and three in the self-contained garden room, complete with kitchenette.
Bedrooms one and two on the first floor each offer a superking and an en-suite, while bedrooms three and four are en-suite doubles, and bedroom five provides two single beds. The garden room offers three further en-suite kingsize bedrooms..
What people say
Ski, apres-ski and 5D cinema
Ski or snowboard at Snozone, Europe's largest indoor resort, raid the farm shop for apres-ski at Warner's Gin Distillery or catch the motor-racing action at Silverstone. Kids can meet the animals at Rookery Open Farm, powerboat or paddleboard at Willen Lake and Park, or enjoy 5D cinema at Vertigo VR.
