How Britain’s newest country estate is luring the middle class to Hampshire
There can’t be many holiday houses with a fishery at the bottom of the garden. Although, the term fishery doesn’t do justice to the bucolic watery view on show here, with a tunnel of trees over the water’s edge, swans gliding between the reeds, and the plumpest of geese waddling along the lakeside.
It was enough to make me and my son take up a couple of rods and spend a couple of hours learning how to cast them into the trio of lakes, for the sheer joy of being part of the picture. Not to mention the news that someone had just bagged a 20Ib rainbow trout. And though we didn’t get much more than a nibble, it was a fun way to get close to nature.
I was at Avington Lakes, an 80-acre estate that has just opened in Hampshire’s Itchen Valley, breathing new life into the historic Avington Trout Fishery. It offers a choice of places to stay by the water, from dinky shepherd huts to contemporary cabins, all with their own wood-fired hot tubs and barbecues, sometimes even a boat to launch from the garden.
This is no longer a place just for fishing folk – there’s paddle-boarding, kayaking, rowing, wild swimming and a treatment room in which you can enjoy massages at the water’s edge. Then there’s the magnificent stately home on the wider Avington Park estate, where Nell Gwyn and Charles II cavorted in the 17th century and which became known as the royal party palace. Not forgetting the estate’s own pub, which offers superb food and has just been refurbished with four chic bedrooms and a village shop.
The man behind it all is Nicolas Roach, the former owner of the 15-strong Harbour Hotels group, which became known for its spas, good food and characterful buildings in the south of England. Having sold it, he’s now focused on developing a new five-star collection along the UK coast, following the success of the Nici in Bournemouth, which opened in 2022 with 88 rooms and a Miami vibe.
When Avington Park, with its Palladian colonnaded porch and red-brick wings by the River Itchen came on the market in 2020, he snapped it up as a family home (albeit one with 50 rooms), continuing the weddings business that was already operating at this most romantic of retreats. It was the fulfilment of a long-held dream – Roach had offered to buy the mansion 25 years beforehand.
Wanting to share the magical 150-acre estate but determined to preserve his family’s privacy – this is a man who is so publicity-shy that you need a password to see his profile on the company website – Roach saw the solution when the 80-acre fishery adjoining Avington Park went on the market in 2022. He slowly developed it, repurposing disused huts and fishing cottages and rewilding the area with thousands of trees along with hedgerows. Now a total of 86 people can stay in properties by the lakes and in and around the stately home.
These include cabins with discreet nods to their fishing heritage, from artfully strung nets to herringbone fabric in the swish interiors, where windows frame watery views and decks have Adirondack chairs from which to appreciate them.
In the main house, the place to pick is the five-bedroom Tudor apartment, which includes an opulent suite with a wooden four-poster bed that’s so impressive you wonder how they got it up the stairs. And then there’s the seven-bedroom Stillwaters House, with its double-storey wall of glass overlooking the lakes and a heated pool on the terrace.
The real joy of staying somewhere like this is the setting. I plunged right into it with my son – literally – by going wild swimming in the lake, running and jumping together into the water. Then screaming; it was icy. I think we lasted two minutes before scrambling out and heading for the toasty interior of the barrel sauna, right by the water’s edge.
We did yoga outside, too, but there’s also a yoga studio along with a gym area. There are even small pods scattered around the grounds for meditation. But you can feel inner peace here just by sitting on one of the wooden chairs by the lakes (unless you’re one of the people nervously planning a proposal here – it’s that kind of place).
As for walks, they don’t get much more scenic than taking a turn around the house at Avington Park (overnight guests can do this in the mornings only, to protect Roach’s privacy). When I set off to explore, only a clutch of gardeners and a herd of sheep was around to share the view of the mansion, with its arched bridge over the bullrush-rich river.
There are bikes to borrow too; even if you’re not a keen cyclist, it’s just a 10-minute ride to Avington’s pub, the Chestnut Horse in Easton. We set off here one evening anticipating some top-notch pub grub – we knew the food would be special because our welcome hamper had been stocked with seriously good bread, cakes, cheese and meat from the pub’s shop.
But we were surprised nevertheless by the standard of the gastropub fare as well as the warmth of the welcome. And if you opt for the trout (which I’d heartily recommend), you know exactly where it came from – it just wasn’t caught by me.
Jane Knight was a guest of Avington, which offers doubles in the pub from £105 B&B, shepherd huts from £150, one-bedroom cabins from £250, a three-bedroom apartment from £450 and Stillwaters House from £1,750.
