Cool off in a country hotel

So we're finally getting some sunshine and the temperature in the city is heating up. It's at times like these when thoughts turn to relaxing by a pool in the middle of nowhere. Our writers pick four

The Nare Hotel, Cornwall

It's supposed to be a good sign when a hotel claims to have a high percentage of returning guests, but my heart sinks when a manager proudly announces that Mr and Mrs Crumplestitch have been coming every summer for 15 years. Too dull to try something new, I always think to myself.

I have revised my opinion, however, since attending the manager's cocktail party last month at The Nare Hotel on Cornwall's Roseland peninsula. The party was held in an airy new extension to the original country house, called the gallery sun lounge (the walls liberally hung with the owner's eclectic collection of modern, mostly Cornish, art).

The atmosphere was more private view than Bill Bryson notes material. One introduction from the manager and I was off, in conversation with a nice lady from Kent who gave me a potted history of the hotel.

It's redoubtable octogenarian owner fled the naffness of Newquay's hotel scene to open The Nare in 1989. She now keeps an eye on how her grandson is running things, and she'd even, I was told, written a book about her life as a hotelier. Nothing dull about all this, I had to admit, enjoying celebrity status as the new girl and shoe-horning in another canapÈ.

The Nare is one of those terribly civilised hotels we English do so well - jolly (efficient) ladies on reception, separate menus for picnics, children and dogs, a teapot (oh, bliss) to go with the bedroom kettle and tea bags, and vast cream tea in the drawing room at four. (With a hint of disappointment I realised there wasn't a candlewick bedspread in my pretty single room, but I could see and hear the sea.)

What most traditional four-star hotels do not have, though, is a health spa dishing out aromatic E'spa treatments; a Cornish crabber, skippered by the manager, to hire; free rail transfers (Truro or St Austell stations) and a perfect gem of an outdoor pool (heated May to September) with one of the best views I think I'm likely to get in Europe.

The Nare Hotel (01872 501111), Carne Beach, Veryan-in-Roseland, Cornwall. Seaview rooms from £136 per person per night half-board in high season. Sally Shalam travelled to St Austell with First Great Western (08457 000125), one-week Apex returns £31, or first class £59.80.
(SS)

Tylney Hall, Hampshire

Tylney Hall attracts a moneyed clientele - new and vintage cars adorn the gravel drive, and there's a heli-pad to the rear of the hotel. This stately, turn-of-the-century walnut-panelled, comfortable country manor gets a lot of things right - and people with cash like that.

For starters, its outdoor pool is heated to perfection - cool enough to refresh but without being icy. It even has its own redbrick-walled Dutch garden, so named, rather literally, after the Dutchman who built it in the 1920s (Seldon Wornum) within the main landscaped grounds with views across the 300-acre Duke of Wellington Country Park, which can be visited. If bad weather drives you indoors there's an indoor pool with whirlpool tub and, in April, a new gym and treatment rooms were added.

It was vanity, not rain, which sent me inside for a Parisian Matis Aromatis facial - a heavenly hour-long firming and moisturising treatment especially good for eyes and necks - which left me feeling and looking as gorgeous and high-maintenance as the cars parked out front.

Tylney Hall, Rotherwick, Hook, Hants (01256 764881), doubles with B&B £159.
(JF)

New Park Manor, Hampshire

It takes 90 minutes to get to the New Forest from west London - except on a Friday night ... And so my girlfriend and I sat in traffic on the A316 at Twickenham, fuming at the thought of missing dinner as we headed for New Park Manor. Last sitting, 9pm.

Just after nine we hurled our bags into our suite, The French Room, then jettisoned ourselves into the hotel restaurant. Staff were welcoming and didn't rush us. Puddings - fresh strawberry pavlova, chocolate mousse of white, dark, and milk - were highlights, but courgette-and-Brie soup and seared tuna and spicy couscous totally acceptable. The wine list was bafflingly long for a beer drinker, but with help I settled on an Italian red.

New Park Manor dates back to the 1400s but we only got to appreciate its character and architecture the following day from the grounds behind it as a redbrick-and-glass extension to the front obscures most of the original building. Dozens of equine prints are in keeping with the house's original use as King Charles II's hunting lodge, though the repro leather chairs and flowery curtains are a bit "golf club".

Our room didn't have the bathroom flatscreen TV some rooms apparently have and was quite small. The mahogany bed was comfortable, however, and overlooked landscaped gardens,the small outdoor pool and, beyond, riding stables.

Heading down for a dip the next morning, I discovered the pool's cover had been left off overnight and the water was far too cold for a Southerner to attempt. This pool is obviously at its best after a few blazingly hot days.

New Park Manor, Brockenhurst, Hampshire (01590 623 467). Doubles from £110 B&B. Three-course a la carte dinner £27 without wine. Riding, around £20 an hour.
(AH)

Hidcote Cottage, Glos

Sipping ice-cold Bollinger from a crystal glass, sucking on plump, ripe strawberries, bubbles whirl around my body as I relax in the outdoor tub at Hidcote Cottage. Fenced off from its parent hotel - Cotswold House - my private garden has a small square lawn, with giant slabs of yellow stone paving the way to the hot tub's wooden steps.

My friend Louiza and I arrived after a sticky drive, plonked our luggage on the biscuitcoloured carpet and flopped into an armchair each in front of a stone fireplace. What a haven this 17th century cottage was going to be for two frazzled citydwellers.

Neutral shades, heavy, pale beams ... we chilled out listening to wind rustling through the trees outside. Modern touches, black cubed pots holding a cactus or single iris, complement random antique pieces - a mahogany chest of drawers and carved solitaire board (we both admired it but didn't bother playing).

I checked out the hot tub while Lou soaked in the bath, watching an old episode of Friends on the plasma TV discreetly positioned in the wall. Mmm, dinner, served in the hotel restaurant. I devoured succulent chargrilled scallops then tucked into roasted duck breast in plum sauce.

I'm not a big fan of dessert but the hot chocolate fondant converted me; as my knife slipped into the sponge, out oozed a pool of warm, rich sauce. Before breakfast we drank coffee on the patio (little wrought-iron chairs and a mosaic Moroccan table).

"How romantic is this place?" Louiza asked, "Perfect for a loved-up couple," I replied. Oh, the pains of singledom.

Hidcote Cottage at Cotswold House, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire (01386 840 330), costs £376 per night for two with breakfast and dinner.
(DF)