Fancy dressing | Review: Lucknam Park, Bath

I’ve been to a fair few house parties in my time. Over the years I’ve graduated from party bags and pass the parcel to kooky fancy dress with cava from teacups, and fondue fiestas in 1970s ski wear. There’s even been a party where absinthe jelly was the only sustenance.

But now, entering the wrong side of my thirties, I am keen to leave those heady, sticky, tipsy times behind and graduate onto a house party experience a little more refined.

I’d gawped at The Great Gatsby, I’d swooned over the Upper East Side soiree in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and I’d devoured every Jane Austen ball scene going – so I knew the most important starting point was some sort of access to a magnificently posh place, even just for a night or two. Enter Lucknam Park, just outside Bath: a luxury hotel housed in the stateliest of stately homes, offering the ideal hybrid of fancy accommodation, sophisticated spa and fine dining, all wrapped up in the atmosphere of a polished house party in the English countryside.

We headed west out of London and two hours later found ourselves motoring down a mile-long driveway surrounded by symmetrical beech trees. As the 17^th century Palladian mansion house came into view, we straightened our hair, dusted the crumbs from our laps and slipped into our poshest shoes…

At Lucknam Park there’s nothing as impersonal as a reception desk or luggage trolley, just overstuffed sofas, roaring fires, a Barbour-clad porter and a charming manager who greets you like an old friend. There’s an grand old drawing room for afternoon tea, a library filled with old tomes and today’s papers, roaring fireplaces, fresh flowers, and a line of Hunter boots in every size, ready to borrow to roam the grounds – all 500 acres of it, complete with croquet lawn, tennis courts and stables. So far, so Downton.

Our room was a confection of chintz and velvet soft furnishing, with another huge real fire ablaze – nothing modest or minimalist here. Some might consider the décor a little fussy and dated; we saw it as an imaginary eccentric aristocratic aunt’s guest bedroom. There was a bed the size of my London flat, with a whopping canopy swathed in Barbara Cartland brocade, a bathroom brimming with marble, a separate own dressing room, and breakfast in bed brought up by dashing butlers each morning. We could have hid away here for the whole weekend, but that wasn’t the point. We were determined to be social.

We wandered the grounds and found ourselves at the spa, where the 17^th century suddenly leaps forward to the 21^st with a list of modern facilities almost as long as the driveway.

The latter was, she promises, “torture disguised as therapy” – unable to turn her head or smile, she had to beg someone to un-staple her

I love spas, but my partner is not a fan – the thought of them makes her overwrought rather than relaxed. Her previous misadventures have included overly vigorous boob massages, being forced to lie corpse-like on a concrete slap wrapped in cling film, weird intrusive intestinal manipulation and to top it all off, ear stapling acupuncture. The latter was, she promises, “torture disguised as therapy” – unable to turn her head or smile, she had to beg someone to un-staple her.

With excitement on my part and diffidence on hers, we investigated the assortment of little cabins by the fire-lit swimming pool. We fluttered between the sauna, steam room, tepidarium, Japanese salt room and a bizarre “amethyst room”, whose point we never quite determined. I slipped off for a fabulous scrub and massage, while my hesitant partner slipped into an outdoor hydrotherapy pool billowing steam in the chilly February air.

Dinner on the first night was in the brasserie, attached to the spa and billed as the hotel’s more relaxed place to dine. It was aiming for contemporary, but the service was a awkward and the food was more miss than hit. After a promising start of tasty dressed crab with frites, the mains were on the tiny side, and incredibly over-salted.

The next morning we read the papers in the library and borrowed bikes to cycle around the grounds as if we owned them. For those who enjoy more of a less horizontal weekend (our ten-minute cycle was quite enough for me) there’s an equestrian centre, an acclaimed cookery school, and the glorious city of Bath is a 15-minute drive away.

Dinner on the second night was a radically different experience. Executive chef Hywel Jones heads The Park Restaurant, where he has held a Michelin star for the last nine years. We threw on our glad rags and joined the other guests in the drawing room where the staff were working the room and sharing stories, with pre-dinner Champagne and canapés.

On more than one cosy table for two, it looked like a marriage proposal was just about to take place

The dining room itself is intimate and old-school luxurious, with starched linen, more lavish curtaining, and the family silver on display: the perfect setting for our fantasy house party. On more than one cosy table for two, it looked like a marriage proposal was just about to take place. The service was so highly choreographed that we found ourselves transfixed by the dance around the dishes and compelled to speak in hushed tones. Yet nothing overshadowed the food, which was spectacular. A velouté of leeks and new potatoes, parmesan gnocchi, smoked haddock and quails eggs stood out, as did a gloriously camp desert of croustillant of roast pineapple, rum-raisin parfait, coconut sorbet and Macadamia nut caramel, and the fabulously filled and suitably stinky cheese trolley.

This is the only house party I’ve ever been to where I came out feeling better than when I went in. C

Lucknam Park Hotel & Spa, Colerne, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 8AZ, UK
+01225 74536; lucknampark.co.uk

Liz Collier is a documentary producer and one of the founders of East London’s Fringe! Film & Arts Festival