The Grosvenor Arms, Dorset - hotel review

More than bread and breakfast, says James Ashton
Makeover magic: the Grosvenor Arms has undergone a tasteful refurbishment
James Ashton2 March 2015

The hilltop market town of Shaftesbury, in Dorset, will forever be associated with bread. It was here more than 40 years ago that future movie director Ridley Scott filmed the famous Hovis advert, in which a delivery boy pushes his bike laden with loaves up a steep incline.

That moment of fame for the vertiginous, cobbled Gold Hill — where residents still have the ancient right to keep sheep — is marked by a giant-sized Hovis loaf mounted on the main street. It’s a useful marker for the Grosvenor Arms, Shaftesbury’s main hotel, which is intent on becoming the toast of the town once again.

A former owner had given this old medieval coaching inn an unwelcome makeover. The happily now obsolete gaudy pink décor of some of the rooms suggested that for a time it was more Shaftesbury Avenue than Shaftesbury in the heart of this picture-postcard countryside. Trying to ape something it thought made it cool and metropolitan wasn’t working.

The refurbishment that greeted us is much more in keeping with its surroundings and has become something to escape to, not from. We arrived late in the evening, with a decent deli board and warming Merlot waiting. It was a good sign of things to come.

The hotel has 16 rooms, plus nine that are being bought back after previously being sold and converted into flats. Some of the junior suites look over the central courtyard. The room we stayed in was beige and spacious, with a large comfy bed, cool white linen, powerful wi-fi, Tassimo coffee machine and Orla Kiely toiletries.

Breakfast the following morning in the sunny cobbled courtyard with tinkling water feature was as restful as the room. The full English was as good as I’ve had — shame about the dusty muesli I also tried: it might have come from the bottom of the box. But the waiting staff were young and eager and couldn’t do enough, which included entertaining our two-year-old as we ate.

The refit of the restaurant space is an orgy of Farrow & Ball. Everything has been thrown at it to create a modern and historic look in grey and pastel shades, including a welcoming bar, maps and letters mounted on the walls, a coat of arms in the library, ornate horse centrepiece, and a private dining room created by shifting offices to one side. It tries to pull off the trick of being stylish but relaxed, which it largely does by letting staff pad about in jeans and Converse trainers.

The Grosvenor’s dinner menu is undoubtedly the star. It shows off an adventurous streak in a chef who is clearly not afraid of offal. Specials when we stayed included herb-crusted bone marrow, pig’s head terrine with pickled veg and white pizza with Somerset brie, walnut and rocket — one of many dishes pulled straight from the wood-fired oven. If it’s local, it has a better chance of being served up, including delicious Dorset cheeses, as well as pork from the hotel owner’s farm.

Countryside escape: The Grosvenor Arms

I had garden-fresh vegetables with goats’ curd — simply done but well executed, clean and fresh. That left plenty of room for Portland plaice, served with salty bacon, broad beans and a creamy polenta. Fewer scattered pea shoots would have been fine.

The clientele is a curious mix. Shaftesbury is well placed for parents visiting the half-dozen private schools in the area, including Sherborne, where film director Sir Richard Eyre and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin studied. A couple of hours’ drive from the capital, it also has an eye on weekending Londoners.

On the night we stayed, diners included ladies on a flapper-themed hen night — ideally booked at the large sharing table — and families out for a meal whose bored teenagers played chess on their iPads in the bar.

What is there to do during the day? Beyond marvelling at the plastic loaf, the town is worth a wander around. This is Thomas Hardy country — soon to come into sharper focus with the release of the film adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd this spring — with the odd thatched roof here and there, and some buildings that claim inspiration for chapters in Jude the Obscure in particular.

We drove out to Stourhead, the family seat of the Hoare banking family and a hymn to Greek mythology with a man-made lake fringed with its own Pantheon and Temple of Apollo. That left us time to take in a local village fête before I settled into a town centre pub while my wife was pampered back at the hotel with an in-room facial by the delightful, on-call beautician Katie.

If I were to go back, I wouldn’t book a room overlooking the main square. On Sunday morning, we looked out over a view that wouldn’t have disgraced a Britain in Bloom contest as the church bells rang out. But we also heard too much from shouty locals making their way home the previous night. Other minor gripes: no fridge in the room and the TV looked small and lost mounted on the wall. But all in all, the town still remembered for its Hovis connection has guaranteed itself a thick slice of weekend trade thanks to this smart makeover.

The Grosvenor Arms, Shaftesbury, Dorset, SP7 8JA (01747 850 580, thegrosvenorarms.co.uk). Double rooms start at £85, B&B.

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