It had ‘that “special” feel of a very good and well-run hotel’, found a visitor to this country house hotel and spa (Relais & Châteaux) in deepest Thomas Hardy country.

Once used to billet D-Day troops, this revamped early 17th-century mansion now hosts ‘young children, exhausted parents’ and grandparents.

It is as if a cruise liner had docked on the banks of Dorset’s Stour several years ago, to the sound of popping corks, and everyone liked it so much that they’d stayed.