USP Whizz down the M20 and soon you’re getting slathered, rubbed and lathered in a wooded cabin amid golden wheatfields in the Garden of England.

AMBIENCE It’s Olde England, neatly updated. The heart of the hotel is an ancient manor house, down a rose-strewn gravel driveway opposite a 12th-Century church. All you need is a spinster cycling past the gateposts to complete the picture.

Step into the spa and things suddenly get all 21st-century, with ambient music and lighting in the chill-out room, a good-sized indoor pool, sauna, steam room and whirlpool bath.

Massages and beauty treatments are given in individual cabins in the woods on the edge of the grounds. These each have large glass panels overlooking the hills near by. At the bottom of the road is St Margarets Bay, a vertiginous drive down into a gap between the White Cliffs of Dover.

EXPERIENCE My Irish masseuse was friendly and expert, so I was very happy to lie back and think of Southern England while New-Age music ambiently tinkled away.

Products are a pleasantly mixed bag: Dermalogica for beauty treatments, OPI for nails and Aubrey Organics for soaps and lotions.

FOOD Don’t expect to leave looking thinner. The restaurant (two AA rosettes) prides itself on modern British cuisine using local and seasonal produce - and the servings are hardly skimpy. My sea bass proved deliciously, delicately succulent, matched in quality by the wife’s roast pork. The breakfasts are heartily good, too. It’s all served amid ancient oak beams and etchings of old tombs of former inhabitants (which inspired the wife to suggest that brass rubbing might be a more rewarding hobby than she’d previously thought. I blame the wine.)

IN-CROWD OK, so it’s not quite Brangelina or the Aga Khan, but familiar faces include Richard and Judy escaping from the couch. The golfer Colin Montgomery visits while playing tournaments. And David Walliams stayed here while preparing to swim the English Channel.

WALLET WATCH Good value, with many 60-minute treatments around the £45 mark.

Spa Days cost £99.00 per person (available Sunday to Friday) and include a 90-minute treatment package - for example, Chill is an Indian head massage and aromatherapy massage while Feel Alive is a body brushing and holistic massage - plus a light lunch, robe and towels hire and use of all leisure facilities.

Two-night spa breaks start from £249 per person, and include a 90-minute treatment package, a three-course dinner in the award-winning restaurant on both nights, breakfast and use of the spa facilities.

NEED TO KNOW Wallett's Court Country House Hotel Spa, Westcliffe, Dover, Kent CT15 6EW
(01304 852 424; www.wallettscourthotel.com )

Times recommends

• Le travel blatting: the French art of the car
• The Times travel photo competition
• A genuine Berber guesthouse in Morocco