Coworth Park, Dorchester Collection

The Dorchester hotels have, up till now, been an urban phenomenon. But lessons learned at the Plaza Athénée, the Beverly Hills Hotel, the original Dorchester in London, pay off in the Berkshire countryside at Coworth Park, the Dorchester group’s first country-house hotel.

As a hotel it’s brand new, but the house is a stunningly well-preserved 18th-century Georgian antique, surrounded by 200+ acres of parkland — and, as it happens, it’s an equestrian paradise, with its own polo field, in a location that’s close to the racecourse at Ascot and to Windsor Great Park.

This, indirectly, benefits even the equine-agnostic: while thirty rooms and suites occupy the main house, another forty are housed in the old stables and various outlying cottages. Those in the main house are a mix of the historical and the contemporary, with plenty of period personality, while those in the stables and cottages feature modern furnishings in an earthy, classic palette.

Coworth Park features two fine culinary options: one a fine-dining restaurant, Woven by Adam Smith, the other a more casual eatery in The Barn’s stylish space. The most stylish space of all, however, is probably the spa, a modern glass-fronted architectural marvel, half buried under a living roof, itself home to the chef’s herb garden. There’s a full gym inside, as well as a swimming pool, and a short walk away is what’s, for a certain subset of Coworth Park guests, probably the main event: the equestrian center.