Edward James enjoys a luxury spa weekend at an old mansion in the rolling Anglesey countryside.
The glory days of the country house have provided a sumptuous Sunday evening TV feast for years, from Brideshead Revisited to Downton Abbey.
There’s something appealing about that life of leisured ease, of luxury and domestic comfort alongside formal dinners and tennis on the lawn, picnic hampers, bright young things and ubiquitous servants.
Who wouldn’t fancy a taste of the lotus-eating lifestyle of the landed gentry of a bygone era?
That’s what Tre Ysgawen Hall Country House Hotel and Spa delivers, along with the mod cons of a superbly equipped spa.
It’s hidden away in the rolling Anglesey countryside, somewhere between busy Llangefni and picturesque Red Wharf Bay, down a succession of narrow lanes, through little villages with their tiny, ancient churches – it’s the sort of place satnav was invented to find.
Once found, you sweep into the car park and out of the 21st century, with a crunch of golden gravel driveway, to a quintessential stone-built Victorian country house with immaculate gardens and towering trees.
The imposing front door gives onto a massive hall with a great oak staircase climbing away to one side and a succession of doorways leading off – it’s quite magnificent but it’s warm and friendly, too, and so is the welcome.
Tre Ysgawen was built for the Pritchard-Rayner family in 1882 and there are paintings of them astride the horses which were once stabled where the impressively equipped spa now is.
We had a quick look round, first at the gardens with their woodland walks, shady seats and interesting sculptures, and then at the house itself, oak panels and doors everywhere.
Captain Pritchard-Rayner had his office at the foot of the back stairs and down the corridor to what was the servants hall lies the Anglesey Suite for conferences. Beyond that is the spa.
The hotel offers a choice of individually designed and decorated deluxe, superior and four-poster rooms plus two four-poster suites, both with whirlpool spa bath.
Our room had high ceilings and a comfortable spacious bathroom and views out over the front door to the gardens – the bed was an absolute delight and we slept soundly, which doesn’t often happen in hotels.
But before that it was down to dinner.
The restaurant is open right up to 9.30pm so there’s no rush and, as PG Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster – no stranger to country house living – would have observed, there’s clearly a capable person wielding the skillet. We dined very well indeed on a menu that took pride in local produce and you couldn’t have got more local than the herbs and vegetables grown in the hall’s own Victorian walled garden which we discovered on a ramble the next day.
