Hotel Hit Squad: After four failed attempts to get there, Chewton Glen – and its sparkling new spa – were worth the wait

It took four attempts to get to Chewton Glen this year. My first stay was postponed because the new pool loungers at the refurbished spa hadn’t arrived. How could I possibly go? Then, in March, there was a more significant incident involving a banana, a bat and a pig that ended up being cooked by a chef in a casino in Hong Kong, who then shook hands with a drunk Gwyneth Paltrow. Or something. My life downsized, marked solely by daily trips to M&S in Dalston, east London. Chewton Glen seemed impossibly far away.

Then, in June, I rebooked, but thanks to the machinations of government, the spa wasn’t allowed to open. There were mobility scooters parked up outside my local Wetherspoons at 10am, but kundalini or a full body scrub? Hold your horses. I finally made it last week, my first foray out of London since Before Times. But, this being 2020, my husband was taken out by a stomach bug, so I went on a nice romantic trip to Hampshire alone. Still, nothing could rain on my parade, not even the actual rain falling as I was driven through the pretty rambling gardens. I could have floated through those 18th-century front doors, radiant with out-of-London joy.

Until I was face down on the table, a massage still felt implausible. I haven’t been touched by anyone I’m not married to in months. But it happened. I was rubbed in hot oil and tenderised for 75 minutes. All felt normal. And nice. The masseur wore PPE, and there were no magazines to finger in the post-treatment relaxation area, but the rest of the experience seemed comfortingly pre-plague. Notably the only touchpoint for me – massage aside – was the questionnaire I had to complete in the treatment room. No, I haven’t come into contact with anyone with Covid. No, I’m not pregnant. Am I sleeping well? I’d say well-ish – after 10mg of Ambien and two large glasses of corner shop rioja.

The newness of the new spa is mostly in evidence around the pool. It used to be a sort of Home Counties Greco-Roman affair, now it’s gleaming white, with New Forest woodland frescoes. I spent an hour swimming, blinded by the afternoon sun pouring in, and it was everything I’d been waiting for – frustratingly overweight thanks to lockdown bingeing, but weightless, immersed in warm water and light. In line with government guidelines, the steam rooms and saunas remained closed, facial treatments were not allowed, and you had to change in your room, but that wasn’t the end of the world.

The rest of Chewton Glen is all about bringing the outside in, with a maze of red carpeted hallways in the main building, and aubergine and berry-coloured bedroom walls with an abundance of floral chintz trims and wallpaper. This is the sort of look that needs to be immaculate, executed with a lot of budget and space. The hotel has both to burn.

Dining here has changed slightly. Chef James Martin still oversees The Kitchen restaurant but it has – to use the buzzword of the year – “pivoted” from tapas-style dishes to seafood, meaning fewer visits to the table from the staff and a more formal structure of starters and mains. The £50 Plateau de Fruits de Mer is an opulent arrangement of crustaceans and bivalves. I love a seafood platter – I’m definitely never having one at home – and could eat the centrepiece of buttery brown shrimp to a band playing. Dinner at the more formal but no less prosaically named Dining Room was just as good, albeit marred by hellions and questionable parenting in a nearby private room. Plus ça change. This is essentially a great grill restaurant elevated by Asian twists and fancy salads. With an eye to weight loss, a lush, simply cooked Dover sole was just the ticket.

Chewton Glen lulled me into a false sense of normality. The reminders of 2020 are omnipresent but subtle: QR codes at tables for menus and staff in face coverings. I was shown to my room but left alone at the door, as if I was a vampire and hadn’t formally invited the receptionist in. Slightly odd: I’m sure my towels weren’t straightened up by someone in a hazmat suit.

I made a misstep as I got into the vast hydrotherapy pool and hurt my left foot, shouted in blind fury, and for a split second it felt like the worst thing to have happened to me this year. Then I stood under one of those water jet things that make you feel like Bruce Weber is taking a photo of you, and felt consumed by Jeremy-Irons-in-Watchmen energy. Everything would be OK. On the way out, I noticed the new pool loungers. They were lovely: dark wood, with upholstery in a shade of blue that matched the water. Well worth the wait.