Canine companions are welcome in specific rooms and downstairs public areas

Teffont House is good for:

• Fishing on the Nadder
• Non-sporting plus-ones
• Stargazing

Sitting in the softly candlelit orangery of the newly opened Teffont House with a plate of smoked venison in front of me, I watch a table of Americans pull up. And I realise then that I feel unashamedly, smugly proud. Because the medieval village of Teffont Evias might just showcase Britain at its very best: thatched cottages, an Evian-clear stream weaving through and honey-coloured houses made using the same stone as nearby Salisbury Cathedral. It helps that it’s the height of summer, so the hedgerows are bursting and cows are idly grazing. But even so, if this was your first rodeo in the English countryside, you’d think you had landed in some sort of bucolic utopia.

The candlelit bar is the perfect setting for pre-dinner drinks

Shooting parties

The team behind the overhaul of this 17th-century dower house has form. Their first outpost, The Beckford Arms a few miles from here, has become a sort of minibreak Mecca, where shooting parties descend from October to January and jodhpur-clad children with hairnets still on nestle at the bar with a ginger beer alongside glossy London couples. They have since opened four more pubs dotted across the West Country, each a perfect concoction of wellies at the bar and moody Farrow & Ball nooks. But the set-up at Teffont House is intentionally more grown-up: a proper country house hotel with a side of cool. (Read more of our hotel reviews here.)

A dazzling window display

Bedrooms are elegantly designed, restful spaces

Badminton and croquet

In each of the 17 bedrooms, a decanter of vermouth awaits; there’s a little paper bag of home-made cookies; a glass bottle of milk for your morning tea is put outside your door at 7am; there are stacks of Penguin Classics and River Cottage Handbooks; lust-worthy bespoke wallpaper from Carmine Lake; and from our room, a view across the hotel’s walled garden to Teffont’s 12th-century church. When the house was the home of the Honourable David Tennant and his actress wife Hermione Baddeley in the 1930s there was a steady stream of glamorous guests here (Laurence Olivier was said to enjoy a skinny-dip in the pond). And nearly a century later what has been cleverly masterminded is the buzz of a frivolous country house weekend. There are sun loungers hidden across the garden for a G&T at whatever time you deem acceptable, a gong welcomes guests to drinks from 5pm and the cocktail menu is expertly curated (try the West Country Daiquiri made with cider brandy). Across the lane is the immaculate badminton court and croquet lawn in a walled garden; there’s private dining in the former tack room (the more raucous the better); and at 4pm you can tuck into a menu of toasted tea cakes, Victoria sponge and Gentleman’s Relish with soldiers.

The view from the writer’s room

Cheese trolley

Head chef Tom Holloway is big on local ingredients, so expect the likes of garden herb fritters and Dorset feta. However, the showstopper is the old-school cheese trolley that is wheeled around at the end of dinner, before you decamp back into the bar to see out the evening or dart outside to stargaze (Teffont Evias is in the Cranborne Chase International Dark Sky Reserve).

When you eventually reappear for breakfast, the dedicated Bloody Mary station (cut-glass tumblers, lashings of Tabasco) feels like a lifeline, along with the piles of croissants from the nearby Compton McRae bakery and kippers with hunks of buttery toast in silver toast racks.

An open fire takes centre stage in the cosy sitting room

Perfect for a non-sporting plus-one

Here is the sort of place that serves as the best kind of bait for your non-sporting plus-one: never again will they roll their eyes when you suggest a day’s fishing on the Nadder or accept a shooting invitation in this corner of the West Country. While you get your sporting fix, they can stride out, map in hand, into the tangle of Nadder Valley footpaths, head to nearby Tisbury where there’s Messums West art gallery in a 13th-century tithe barn or stay put at the hotel with its potting shed stocked with watercolours. By the time they’re fully ensconced in the wood-fired sauna, they’ll be begging you to stay for one more drive.

Teffont House, Holt Lane, Teffont Evias, Salisbury EP3 5RJ

From £155 per night, including breakfast.

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