THE New Forest’s Chewton Glen has been named the best UK holiday hotel for the third time.

The honour came in the Conde Nast Traveller Readers’ Travel Awards, held at London’s Ham Yard Hotel.

The New Milton hotel’s sister property, Cliveden House in Bekrshire, achieved fourth place in the same UK Holiday Hotel 2016 category.

The awards, hosted by Conde Nast Traveller’s publishing director Simon Leadsford and editor Melinda Stevens, are voted on by readers.

They were asked to pick their favourite country, city, island, hotel and spa, airline, airport, cruise line, villa rental company and tour operator. Readers were asked to rate them all out of 100, with the results collated and analysed by an independent market research company.

Chewton Glen, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, scored of 88.2, with Conde Nast Traveller praising its “steady-as-you-go consistency” across all eight criteria in the category.

Andrew Stembridge, managing director of Chewton Glen and Cliveden House, said: “We are absolutely thrilled that Chewton Glen scooped the top slot for UK Holiday Hotel in the Reader’s Awards again.

“Conde Nast readers are extremely well travelled and discerning, hence this accolade is a considerable achievement amongst very stiff competition, which included several popular newcomers too.

“Even more exciting is the fact that after an extensive refurbishment, Cliveden is now working its way back up the charts again, achieving a very respectable fourth place in the same category.

“It was great to see the Chewton Glen Spa with a healthy top five place in the UK Spa Category and we have high hopes for the new Cliveden Spa, which will be opening in Spring 2017.

“I am very proud of both teams and we are very grateful to the readers who took the time and trouble to vote.”

It was the second time this year the Chewton Glen collected an award at the Ham Yard Hotel.

In July, it took first place in the first Hoteliers’ Hotels Top 100 award, as well as the Countryside Hotel and Spa Hotel of the Year titles. The awards were organised by The Caterer and Sky.

In December, it plans to open a purpose-built cookery school, The Kitchen, along with an informal tasting floor restaurant, to be overseen by chef and TV presenter James Martin.