Yarlington Lodge, a Regency house, is the country estate for beautifully curated private get-togethers

The dining here is flexible in that a team of butlers and chefs could take my orders and cook them, but if I wanted to I could have wandered into the casual kitchen-slash-breakfast room the next morning and helped myself to the contents of the fridge, used the toaster and microwave, and cooked the Full English breakfast ingredients laid out by the stove. Displayed on the Shaker-style cabinets was a spread of fruits, cereal, yoghurts, cheeses, hams and puffy pain au chocolats. Choosing what to eat was quite the dilemma.

Deciding what to do for the rest of the day was equally tough. I could’ve done a few rallies in the tennis court, but I opted to don a pair of Le Chameau wellies (supplied by the lodge), hop into a buggy and try flyfishing at the nearby Yarlington Lake. My instructor was the fabulously dapper Atsushi Hasegawa, The Newt’s Head of Creative, who has a side hustle as a Japanese jazz DJ. After about 10 attempts, Hasegawa helped me reel in a 12-inch trout, which we promptly returned to the water to face another day against predatory local otters.

As a guest at Yarlington Lodge I was also entitled to all The Newt’s five-star amenities and activities, accessible by a short buggy or car ride. On my itinerary was a soothing massage at the spa, followed by a raspberry cheesecake ice cream at the gelateria, and a visit to the ruins of the Roman Villa. Kids will enjoy the to-scale reconstruction of the original building and the VR headsets for watching immersive re-enactments of Roman villa life. Through Yarlington Lodge’s butler team, guests can sign up for various workshops like cider-making and mushroom foraging, or down pints at The Stag’s Head Inn pub in Yarlington village, or head to nearby Bruton, the market town that has remarkably good restaurants and art galleries for a town of its size.