Great British Escape

Living
the high life
Henry Hopwood-Phillips gets in the
Christmas mood 30 feet above the rest of us

ow many times have you lived in a tree?

Childhood may give one brief licence to pursue
the life of a monkey, but once puberty hits, these
arboreal dreams are dismissed by the vertically gifted as the
height of frivolity. It wasnt always so, in fact the Nordic
gods loved trees so much that their entire cosmology
pivoted on the fate of Yggdrasil, an ash tree.
Therefore as I zip past the walled kitchen garden
at Chewton Glen on my golf buggy (completing the
country club look) and feel the gradient increase, I get
excited about joining Hanuman, the Dryads and other
figments of my imagination, in their divine but ultimately
immature existence, nearer the birds than the ground.
But this tree-house totters on stilts, looking very serious
and adult-like compared to the death-traps I used to shoot
at imaginary soldiers from. For starters, it has a floor thats
been hewn from Purbecks peninsula, its fittings are all local
cedar and play host to fixtures that look like theyre from
catalogues that sell items for the price of small mortgages.

And Im not even on the balcony yet where the view is

most certainly that of a Roman commander defending his
lone outpost against hordes of barbarians that will doubtless
emerge from the sea of trees (more than a hundred acres) at

This tree-house totters on stilts,

looking very serious and adult-like
compared to the death-traps I used
to shoot at imaginary soldiers from
any second not that that is the official website description
of course, but it should be. Perhaps its the hot-tub to my
right that marks out such notions as ridiculous.
These 12 stations of civilisation are a good height
from the ground (30ft), but Im a little peeved to be so near

another tree-house a nights stay is above

1,000 after all. That is until I realise that
the intruding offender is in fact also my
tree-house, my bedroom and bathroom to
be precise, and that Im merely standing in
the living room. At 86 square metres, these
tree houses are more like mansions.
But I cannot enjoy it for long. I
have a date at the hotels spa with a
mattress that boasts a hole I can put
my head in. Pummelled like putty,
I retrieve myself sporadically from
the clutches of a world of perfect
posture and unconsciousness, if only
to stop myself from the humiliation of
dribbling. The whole operation is slick
and generous (even offering treatments
for children). The swimming pool these
dens of luxury hover above is saturated
in Roman-themed trompe-loeil, which
isnt to taste, but Europes biggest
hydrotherapy spa pool certainly is.
Chewton Glen used to have a
reputation for being the place where
the aspirational (and the golfer) liked to
come, but the atmosphere and clientele
are spot on, with an air of being formal
yet lived in a place where nobody
takes themselves too seriously.
The fabulous five-roomed gastro
dome, known as
Vetiver, has a cosmopolitan menu,
geared at refuelling its athletic guests,
which reminds me to feel guilty about
all the sports I could have done (ninehole golf, croquet, tennis, biking, clay
pigeon shooting, archery, falconry,
buggy racing and duck herding among
others). My first choice is about as
adventurous as Harrison Ford might be
if he were cast as Indiana Jones today:
charcuterie with pickles. Fortunately
the chef is braver than I am, and the
slab comes out heaving with duck liver
ballotine, pork terrine and pickled
red cabbage. The tagine that follows
is sweet with sultanas and cloying caramelised onions (I
pretend to prefer more macho garlic, turmeric, coriander
and capsicum tagines, but thats just for show) and as I
tuck in, a loud and authentic-tasting carousel of dense,
tangy notes hits my tongue.
I skip dessert because my taste buds have a
relationship with coffee best described as that of a
Stockholm Syndrome victim, and instead I hop into a
golf buggy and head back to my tree house where I set
fire to the (pre-arranged) contents of the wood burner
and put on From Russia with Love to pick up tips from
Bond on how to get used to this kind of lifestyle.
Chewton Glen, Christchurch road, New Milton,
Hampshire, BH25 6QS, 01425 275341 (chewtonglen.com)

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