The hotel: with no exterior signage and blacked-out windows, it’s almost as if the Crazy Bear does not want to be found. And that’s all part of its decadent exclusivity. Because if you don’t want to snort cocaine from the stomach of a muscled rock star within 10 minutes of arriving in this flamboyant hideaway, you’ve just not got into the groove.

Not to suggest that the hotel condones that sort of activity, of course — it’s just what springs to mind after a very dry martini in the rock’n’roll bar, all dark mirrors, Italian marble, polished pewter, crystal chandeliers and a fabulous 17-metre Swarovski-studded black-leather chesterfield. It’s truly wild.

Jason Hunt has meticulously restored the oldest documented building in Beaconsfield, “without restraint or compromise”, to create this fabulous destination hotel. How much did that cost? “A ridiculous amount.”

It must have been a design wake-up call for this tastefully proper little market town that looks like a set from a BBC period drama. There’s obviously a lot of cash sloshing about here. Metropolitan cool-hunters looking for a weekend of unadulterated indulgence needn’t be afraid, though: there’s plenty to do here that doesn’t require wellies. Kick back in the hot tub outside the fantasy hunting lodge with its mounted heads; watch yourself chugging cocktails from every angle in the mirrored Crystal Room; settle into plump leather chairs in the black and gold library for a movie on the 65in HD screen; or just retire to your suite to marvel at the decor.

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BACKGROUND

• The Crazy Bear, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

• Jurys Inn, Milton Keynes

• Stoke Park Club, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

• Hartwell House, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

• The Compleat Angler, Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Related Internet Links

• More hotels in Buckinghamshire and the Midlands

The rooms: the Crazy Bear’s 10 bedrooms are all individually designed around a great curlicued bed with a copper bath at the foot. These grand spaces are cleverly intimate, a sensuous overload of textured leathers on walls and floor, hand-carved wood, French porcelain, gilt mirrors, thick velvets and gold leaf. Ask for room three: very black, very sexy, and with two loos side by side . . .

The food: two restaurants, two kitchens; one English, one Thai. The modern-British menu had us falling hard off the vegetarian wagon: we gave in to a distressingly delicious crispy old spot pig’s trotter stuffed with pork, chicken and veal sweetbreads, served with truffled potatoes (£14.50); and Scottish scallops with a potato mousseline (£22).

If you can bear to leave your room, the charming town of Marlow is a brisk walk along the Thames path, through water meadows filled with velvety cows and waddling geese. And you can have a cream tea at the end.

Who’ll dig it? Rock’n’roll romantics; stylish gourmands.

Who won’t? Those who like a bit of bowing and scraping with their badly designed stuffed shirt.

The Crazy Bear, Old Town, Beaconsfield HP9 1LX; 01494 673 086, crazybeargroup.co.uk . Doubles from £215, B&B. Readers can get 50% off a double, Sun-Thu, to end of April, by quoting The Sunday Times

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