“As you enter the estate, your jaw drops as the staggering beautiful idyllic house and its wondrous gardens come into view - the queen or should I say king of England would be proud of the charming gardens that would make “Capability” Brown jealous. The greeting by what must be the general manager was friendly and professional and made me overlook the somewhat underwhelming welcome we got from other staff at reception - this for me was to become my main gripe with this hotel. I totally understand that this kind of establishment (harking back to good ole days) tries to major in on understated service but it shouldn’t be to a point where the guests struggle to make eye-contact with some of the staff (mainly reception) who are either (purposefully?) looking down or away from guests. If you pride yourself on service from a bygone era then don’t ask me to remind you of my room number 3 times in the space of a few hours, which is what one of the ladies at reception did. A 5x boutique leading hotel of the world should have its receptionists pride themselves on remember each and every guest’s surname and room numbers. We asked the receptionist to book out the tennis court for us - she asked our room number, on our return she asked our room number again and later on that same evening I asked her to inform the restaurant that we wouldn’t be dining and she asked for my room number AGAIN. And to add insult to injury when we returned from tennis with the 3 old tennis balls that had seen better days, we informed her that the tennis rackets she had given us were in need of some TLC (both needed re-gripping and one’s base was broken,) she almost vacantly said “yes, I think there are 2 new rackets in the back”………..well thanks very much for that! If she knew that and if she had any “attention to detail” she would have noticed the old rackets were not fit for purpose and would have given us the new ones - if indeed they actually existed. We stayed in 5 hotels during our trip and at each one, except this one, we were greeted with warm smiles by reception staff both when arriving and during our stay. I am not sure the reception staff here could manage a smile even during a Monty Python sketch. Maybe we are not the “target” clientele for this hotel, maybe we are not aristocratic and/or old enough. The staff lower down the pecking order, especially at breakfast time were however generally welcoming and helpful. But remember your reception staff give the first impression. We felt the reception staff (apart from the general manager who showed us around) were tepid at best and one in particular should never be in a client-serving role at a 5x hotel. It’s a shame as the room was amazing, the gardens simply breathtaking and the lounge, bar and conservatory areas first class - re-train your reception staff if you want to compete with guests that are this side of 60. ”