Three years ago, a hotel maverick called Robin Hutson opened The Pig in Hampshire. Its earthy, all-English style and foraged food ethos made it such a success that three more Pigs have since opened. (Hutson was the brains behind Hotel du Vin, so he’s an old hand at zeitgeisty accommodation.)

The Pig Near Bath, third in the roll-out (just ahead of the Pig on The Beach in Dorset, which opened two weeks ago) is a Georgian mansion in 20 acres of rolling Mendips countryside where deer frolic obligingly as we tuck into breakfast – but still not making it quite worth the £8 I’ve paid for croissants with a view.

Everything at The Pig revolves around eating. An attempt to source all the ingredients from within a 25-mile radius is laudable, even if my husband scoffs that the concept is like the food version of greenwash. But plenty of what we eat isn’t even from 25 metres away. In the enormous kitchen garden, we find fruit trees, glasshouses bursting with tomatoes and chillies, rows of beetroot, fennel and magnificent giant chard.

This last appears at dinner with a rich bacon polenta cake and a poached egg. Pappardelle of rabbit with monk’s beard, and rainbow trout with broad bean leaf are excellent posh pub-type food, and the home-smoked salt, to go with bread and oil for dunking, is a novel (and delicious) touch. On a drizzly Monday, the restaurant (in a gussied-up greenhouse filled with pots of herbs) is full. The locals must be delighted – although Bristol and Bath are both 20 minutes away, there isn’t much in the way of eating out (or entertainment) in the immediate vicinity.

So it’s just as well that this little Pig is a good place to stay put. There’s a snug library stocked with Penguin classics, a lounge bar and the gently wafting scent of woodsmoke everywhere, although it’s also airy and modish. Twenty-nine rooms, in tasteful shades of green and mushroom, are big for the price, especially compared with overpriced Bath, or nearby Babington House, the grande dame of English country hotels.

Ours, with a woodburner and lined with chunky planks creating a cabin-like effect, is in an outbuilding – practically in the kitchen garden – with its own front door. It’s a mid-range “comfy luxe” and for that you get the works: huge bathroom (freestanding bath, rain shower, though a bit stingy on the products), Nespresso machine, fancy crockery. I tuck into fudge from the mini bar, which also has posh crisps, booze, fresh milk and strawberries.

It all feels pretty five-starish, though the team are at pains to play down any hint of fanciness. “We’re really just a restaurant with rooms,” says the genial manager, Tom. But he’s being modest, the scale is bigger, more sophisticated – and not many pubs do spa treatments in the garden. I mooch down to the Potting Shed, a dinky wooden cabin smelling of aromatherapy and decorated with old pinking shears. Dozing on the heated massage bed, I’m vaguely aware of soothing tweeting noises, not the canned kind, but actual birds, the sound of a real-life country idyll.
• Accommodation was provided by The Pig Near Bath