The Close

The Flake girl from those iconic 1990s adverts ain’t got nothing on me. The minute I see a freestanding roll-top bath tub – especially one in the centre of a spacious bathroom, complete with a black-and-white checkerboard-topped side table for my magazine – I am in it. Up to my eyeballs in steaming hot bubbles. After a swift check-in at the cosy Close Hotel in the chocolate-box market town of Tetbury (the reception desk situated next to a roaring fire, where we gratefully warmed our hands on a freezing evening), my husband and I found ourselves ensconced in our capacious room, overlooking the hotel’s charming courtyard.

Our room, named Dove, came complete with a large, brass bumblebee door knocker, resembling something out of an English countryside interior-design dream. Pink, rose-patterned, floor-to-ceiling heavy curtains matched the pleated headboard of the grand, four-poster bed. And my goodness, what a bed; Louis XIV would have been envious of its dizzying height and twisting wooden posts. We immediately regressed to a childlike state and threw ourselves onto its colossal, bouncy mattress – coats still on.

The walls were half clotted cream-coloured wood panels and half mottled, grey-and-white-spotted wallpaper. We both particularly appreciated two large, red brocade armchairs set up by one of the grand windows, around a dainty coffee table primed for morning newspaper reading – having just ordered our rag of choice. But oh, the bathroom – let us return there. While I got straight to the running of my steamy, dreamy bath night – ahem – in the white-waffle hotel robe, my husband enjoyed figuring out the mood music, fiddling with the clever, mirrored-wall TV.

A delightful – if unexpected – touch were the evening church bells as we warmed up our cold, British bodies before our eight-course feast.

As a loather of mornings, I was surprised to find myself looking forward to being awoken by a similarly glorious peal. The slightly uneven floors on the way to dinner in the brasserie were a quiet nod to the history of this 16th-century building. The butter-yellow walls, filled with framed pictures birds, butterflies and leaves, gave way to a dark blue-grey downstairs, where walls were adorned with endless paintings of animals. A cornucopia of sheep, dog, cow, horse and elephant pictures made up an entire wall of the well-appointed bar – which boasted a magnificent glass roof and ceiling.

The atmospheric, dimly lit restaurant, also painted midnight blue-grey, was fitted with ornate working fireplaces at both ends, adding to its cosy feel. Mercifully, however, it was kitted out with modern furniture: tan-leather tub chairs as opposed to those awful shabby-chic benches or unforgiving rough-wood seats, which love snagging tights and causing bottom-numbness during a lengthy meal.

We were almost immediately greeted with some lovely, unordered nibbles – my favourite kind; food, before food. Piping-hot parsnip arancini and homemade bread sticks with creamy carrot hummus were welcome friends as we picked our cocktails of choice.

This is a chef who knows how to please. We ambled our way through an adventurous tasting menu, opening with seared mackerel, followed by rich venison and – for all my fellow Nineties kids – ending with a homemade, dark-chocolate Aero. But the pièce de résistance? A fluffy Poire William soufflé which was rolled out last, and finished us both off brilliantly. It really was a triumph, as was the whole meal – apart from a cold cauliflower bavoir that missed the mark.

Breakfast was a similarly tasty, warming affair, especially the innovative ham-and-gruyère hash-browns. The atmospheric lighting was now replaced with the cold light of a Cotswold day, illuminating a pretty, corniced cream ceiling, as well as the manicured grounds of the hotel. A freezing-cold Cotswolds day greeted us outside, but thanks to the hotel’s central position on Tetbury’s main street, we were soon ensconced within the bosom of the busy weekend outdoor market, situated in the historic Market House structure first erected in 1655 and expressly designed for the sale of wool and yarn.

Once we’d stocked up on local jams, we headed into the town’s other great commercial draw: the official Highgrove shop, a sort of mini Harrods, filled with gorgeous produce from the aforementioned home of HRH the Prince of Wales, situated just outside of Tetbury, and where you can book garden tours. The small town is also famous for its quirky antique and interior-design shops, all housed in the same traditional, warm Cotswolds stone as the Close Hotel. Shopping was very much the order of the day, while the ice-cold wind bit. Consequently, we decided to save the nearby national arboretum of Westonbirt for our last day, post check-out, and scuttled back to the warmth of our room and into those massive armchairs.

Complimentary flapjacks, delivered with our tea, were soon in our grateful hands while we dreamily gazed over the Close’s courtyard and the day’s newspaper headlines, all within our comfortable room. All that was left for us to do on our final afternoon was fill up the bath tub again. It would be rude not to…