Although the Michelin Guide is known globally as the judge for restaurants, in fact it originally launched 124 years ago in France as a hotel guide. With the restaurant ratings a later addition. So it makes sense for the guide to return to offering a guide to hotels offering the equivalent recognition (the Michelin Key ranked from 1-3 keys) awarded to Hotels deemed worthy.
The guide finalises hours of research by the Michelin Guide Inspectors with Two hotels local to Southampton awarded Michelin Keys; Chewton Glen in New Milton and Limewood Hotel in The New Forest.
In total, the 2024 MICHELIN Guide hotel selection for Great Britain and Ireland includes 14 Three Key hotels, 37 Two Key hotels and 72 One Key hotels. The Michelin Guide describes Limewood Hotel as Some country-house hotels — especially those in areas where the manor-house lifestyle is a thing of the distant past — strive heroically to re-create the atmosphere of 1938. In this part of Hampshire, however, there’s nothing to prove, no chips on any shoulders. Perhaps that’s the key to the casual, almost effortless luxury of Lime Wood, in the New Forest, just outside Southampton.
Chewton Glen Chewton Glen may be the country-house hotel against which to measure all others. The location is spectacular, occupying 130 acres of parkland at the edge of the New Forest (once the hunting ground of Norman nobles, later the refuge of smugglers carrying Continental contraband). Nearby are Salisbury Cathedral, Stonehenge, and the Isle of Wight; closer still is the sublime, dramatic Dorset coast, and beyond, the Channel.
