I dare say it’s unusual for the first question on a hotel guest’s mind when entering a room is whether they can sleep with the window open.

However, I live above a high street and my bedroom window remains firmly closed during my sleeping hours lest I be woken, not by a burglar or the sounds of traffic, but by drunken South London accents screaming about text messages or missing cigarettes.

Therefore, when I head off to a country hotel the experience I most look forward to is drifting off to sleep with the window open, safe in the knowledge that I will not hear “Terry, leave it, he’s not worth it”, repeated for at least 30 minutes around chucking out time.

I would give the Montagu Arms Hotel a rave review just for the quality of sleep – it was so good that we slept through our alarm and pitched up at the breakfast room just after 10am, when the morning meal should really have ended.

The Montagu Arms Hotel, New Forest, Hampshire

Sam Lyster finds a country hotel where the service is second to none

BACKGROUND

• Chewton Glen, New Forest, Hampshire

• Master Builder's House, New Forest, Hampshire

• Rhinefield House, Brockenhurst, Hampshire

Related Internet Links

• More hotels in the New Forest

The waitress was accommodating, and took our orders for cooked breakfast with a smile when she was well within her rights to tell us to keep to the continental buffet.

I think that sums up the hotel’s delightful attitude - the staff we met were sweet and smiley in a genuine way. I asked a fellow guest what they thought of the service and they agreed it was excellent.

We stayed in a junior suite, which struck the right tone with its country hotel-style décor. Furniture was antique in look, but there were enough sleek, minimal touches so you didn’t feel you were staying somewhere stuffy, which it could quite easily slip into given its heritage.

There has been an inn on the site of the Montagu Arms since the 16th Century. The original façade was demolished around 1887, with the new building incorporating a public house (now called Monty's) completed in 1888.

In 1925 a new north-east wing was added to form the hotel as it is today. I’ve been to a few hotels in a similar vein and one has felt as though one ought to wander around in crinoline skirts and order sherry.

Thankfully, and possibly something to do with the youthful staff, the hotel’s atmosphere is far more relaxed. There’s a pretty garden in which to have pre-dinner drinks, and we were lucky to have a wonderful summer evening during our stay, so took full advantage and enjoyed Prosecco outside.

This put us in a good mood for dinner, and thankfully the menu in the hotel’s restaurant, awarded Hampshire Restaurant of the Year by Which? magazine in 2007, Good Food Guide 2007, kept us in buoyant form.

My friend Fay had a red mullet starter, with a lightly spiced lentil salad that was divine and I had the scallops, which were fresh and meaty.

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