Hampshire, United Kingdom

Lime Wood

Price per night from$530.30

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP415.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Mannered modern manor

Setting

New Forest’s ancient capital

Originally a mediaeval hunting lodge way back in the 13th century, this New Forest manor was reclaimed for royalty by the Duke of Clarence in the 1740s. Since then, Lime Wood hotel has had another extravagant makeover, giving this stately pile an air of perfection, with landscaped grounds, devotedly designed interiors, a super spa and a tantalising restaurant to prove it.

Smith Extra

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A bottle of English fizz

Facilities

Photos Lime Wood facilities

Need to know

Rooms

33, including 12 suites, one Forest Cabin, one Lake Cabin and two Forest Cottages.

Check–Out

11.30am. Earliest check-in, 4pm.

More details

Rates exclude breakfast (£21 for Continental; £28 for full English).

At the hotel

The Herb House has a spa, gym and indoor pool. Library of books and DVDs, pool, snooker and billiards, mountain bikes and wellies for guests, walking and running trails, valet parking, helipad, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen TV, Roberts radio, reusable water bottle and Bamford bath products.

Our favourite rooms

For honeymoon‑perfect privacy, pick the Pavilion Lodge – it’s separate from the main house and has a private terrace overlooking the forest and a roll‑top bath in the bay window. The bedrooms in the main house are also high on romance, thanks mainly to the elegant Italian marble bathrooms in soft grey and white – Rooms 1 and 2 have bath tubs beneath wide sash windows, and Room 11 has double sinks and an enormous bathroom. If you like a quirky attic abode, plump for an Eaves or Forest Loft room.

Poolside

The 16-metre heated indoor swimming pool is bordered by glass windows overlooking the gardens. The pool is child-friendly, but only during specific hours, so be sure to book ahead with the Herb House reception before bringing along accompanying little Smiths.

Spa

The soul-soothing Herb House spa is spread across three floors, with assorted treatment rooms (eight single rooms, two couple rooms and three for manis), a sauna, an indoor pool with serene forest views, and the Raw & Cured café serving fresh smoothies, juices and other virtuous treats. The decked-out gym is has all the latest Technogym equipment and you can take an extensive range of group fitness classes in the studio or the Hideout.

Packing tips

Leave sensible shoes at home – there’s a whole range of wellies to borrow.

Also

A two night minimum stay is required at weekends, and a three night minimum stay on bank holidays.

Pet‐friendly

Pups are welcome in the Garden Room and Lodges for £30 a night; the hotel provides beds and bowls, but they can't be taken into the Main House, Spa or restaurants. See more pet-friendly hotels in Hampshire.

Children

Little Smiths are well looked after at Lime Wood – cots are £10, extra beds are £30; there’s a children’s menu and bikes on loan. Babysitting with a local nanny starts from £70 an evening (for a minimum of four hours per evening).

Food and Drink

Photos Lime Wood food and drink

Top Table

Pick a quiet table for two by the window, or ask to dine at the chef’s table in the kitchen.

Dress Code

There’s a grown-up manor feel, so clean off the country muck before dinner.

Hotel restaurant

Chefs Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder (who have a formidable Michelin pedigree) plunder their British and Italian heritage, forage for fungi in neighbouring woods and cure it in the onsite Smokehouse to bring refined comfort food – on small, less formal plates – to Hartnett, Holder & Co. The dining space mixes aristocratic eccentricity with trattoria bric-a-brac, including an espresso machine, oak bar and Tracy Emin artwork; or guests can get cosy on a velvet corner sofa and split a sharing dish for more intimate affairs. Adjourn to The Courtyard for alfresco afternoon tea or opt for a leaner, but no less delectable, salad at Raw & Cured, the Herb House Spa’s food bar.

Hotel bar

The light and bright Courtyard Bar has cosy sofas and swivelly Chesterfield-style bar seating; it's a sociable place to enjoy a glass from their extensively researched wine list, a freshly shaken cocktail or a few bits to nibble from the grazing menu.

Last orders

Breakfast is served in the Scullery between 7am and 10.30am. Hartnett Holder & Co serves lunch from noon and dinner from 6pm until 9pm. The grazing menu in the Courtyard Bar is served until 9.30pm.

Room service

Dishes from the Hartnett Holder and Co à la carte can be eaten in-room from noon to 9.30pm. After hours (until 7am), a few select picks from the Lime Wood after-hours menu can be brought to your room.

Location

Photos Lime Wood location
Address
Lime Wood
Beaulieu Road, Lyndhurst
Hampshire
SO43 7FZ
United Kingdom

Lime Wood is a grand country house hotel in the New Forest with a luxurious spa and indulgent restaurant.

Planes

Southampton airport is the nearest, a mere 15 miles away, or 25 minutes' drive. Bournemouth airport is 25 miles (40 minutes' drive) away.

Trains

The nearest station is Brockenhurst, a 10-minute drive (six miles) away with trains connecting you to Winchester, Southampton, Basingstoke and London – South West Trains (www.southwesttrains.co.uk) can whisk you here from London Waterloo in about 90 minutes.

Automobiles

The hotel is conveniently located just 20 minutes from Southampton and has free valet parking for guests, as well as an additional car park for spa- and restaurant-goers. A car's not essential if you're weekending here, but for longer stays you'll want one to get out and explore.

Other

There's also a helipad (call ahead if you're planning on making a big entrance): N50:51:52, W01:33:11, OS: 196 (SU) 314073.

Worth getting out of bed for

Don your wellies and get out into the country air. Visit Beaulieu Motor Museum and wander along the river to Buckeler's Hard hamlet (lovely at high tide). Let Lime Wood know in advance and they'll arrange a kayak trip on the nearby Beaulieu River. Venture into Lymington for seaside walks, nature reserve trails and Isle of Wight day trips.

Local restaurants

At Beaulieu, call in at The Master Builder’s at Buckler’s Hard for lunch or dinner – this elegant rustic pub makes the most of the excellent local produce, turning a recent shoot’s venison into sausages and cooking up comforting Sunday roasts. More locally sourced fare awaits at the Oak Inn on Pinkney Lane in Bank – seafood from Lymington in summer and game from within a five-mile radius in winter. 

Reviews

Photos Lime Wood reviews
Charlotte Wenman

Anonymous review

By Charlotte Wenman, Creative producer

With the prospect of a mid-week retreat to Lime Wood –  a hotel renowned for its timeless interiors (created by not one, but several high-profile designers), a luxurious spa and a fantastic restaurant – I decided to leave Mr Smith at home. Instead, I invited my interior-designer sister along to enjoy a much needed, child-free pamper session. 

Kids dropped to nursery, Granny briefed on childcare, we set out for the New Forest. In typical fashion, about an hour into the journey, our sisterly squabbling began. Thankfully, since it was a Tuesday morning, traffic was light and we soon made our approach past the wild ponies, up the long, sweeping driveway to Lime Wood. 

Our bickering was already forgotten as our bags were whisked away from us at the entrance. Once a 13th-century hunting lodge, the building is situated in beautifully manicured, established gardens and lawns. We were a little too early for the wisteria, but the grand house is still a very impressive and attractive example of Regency architecture. We were ushered into reception for a quick and friendly check-in, before a tour of the hotel and our room, which was in a red-brick pavilion in the grounds of the main house. It was spacious and in shades of buttery neutrals, overlooking the forest. But it’s the main house that wins the interior-design awards. 

A series of classically proportioned drawing rooms have been given a modern twist with bold patterns and upholstery, tactile textures, and glossy fixtures and finishes. Art lines the walls and considered mood lighting creates a cosy yet refined atmosphere. The pièce de résistance is the ingenious retractable glass roof over the atrium bar, flooding the inner courtyard with natural light. Guests gravitate here morning, noon and night, and it’s where we enjoyed our complimentary glass of fizz before our reservation at Hartnett Holder & Co. 

The hotel restaurant has Angela Hartnett and Luke Holder at its head, with a menu of Italian dishes using locally sourced and seasonal produce, designed for sharing. On our best sisterly behaviour, we ordered almost one of everything on the menu. The food was delicious, the atmosphere relaxed, the service charming and personable. We even kept the fighting over the food to a minimum. But then our beds were calling us for an early, child-free, undisturbed night’s sleep, before our much-anticipated day at the spa. 

Next day and up early (my sister’s body clock set to toddler mode), we decided on a morning workout before breakfast. The gym is on the rooftop of the spa, aptly named the Herb House, as the whole thing is set within an idyllic walled herb, rose and lavender garden. Packed with state-of-the-art equipment, this is a hotel gym like no other, with double doors that open onto the roof. While we were there, a PT session was underway, the client lunging between the botanicals. Many of these botanicals, I learned later while enjoying my massage, are used in the treatments themselves, and the herbs are served up daily in the dishes on offer at Herb House’s healthy café, Raw & Cured. With workout views across to the main house and grounds, even the most gym-phobic might be tempted to at least have a look. 

With our sweaty session complete and us both wanting to remain on the healthy wagon for a while longer, we opted for breakfast at Raw & Cured instead of in the main house. Sipping on fresh juices, nibbling on cacao balls and reading the morning paper in the sun (something my sister declared she hasn’t been able to do in peace for over three years), we felt very smug indeed. 

We whiled away the rest of our day reading beside the indoor pool, jumping between the cold shower and sauna, plunging into the forest-encircled hydro pool, and contemplating life on the sun deck. Our spa day ended appropriately – with an incredibly indulgent and restorative full-body, hour-long, deep-tissue massage. 

Supple, Zen and inspired by Lime Wood’s interiors, we set off back to London in time for nursery collection, wondering how long it might take for the effects of our wholesome break to wear off… The answer was one hour into the journey, when, right on cue, our squabbling began again.

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Price per night from $530.30