A Dorset hotel that makes you feel like you’ve stepped into a ‘literary fantasy’ has been hailed as one of the best in Europe.

Summer Lodge in Evershot has been ranked number four in the Conde Nast Traveler Reader’s Choice Awards 2014.

It is just one of three English hotels to make the top 25 and the first three in the chart are based in Italy.

The awards say that the hotel has a ‘homely English setting like no other’ and ‘the feeling you have stepped into a 19th century novel is no accident’.

Kevin Reid, director of sales at the hotel, pictured, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be included at number four on this very prestigious list, particularly as it was voted for by readers of Conde Nast magazines and guests staying at hotels across Europe. “It’s especially pleasing that a small Dorset hotel can compete with the big properties and be voted the top UK hotel in the category.”

Built in 1798 as a dower house by the 2nd Earl of Ilchester, the property was enlarged in 1893 with a second floor added by the Sixth Earl who commissioned his friend and local author, Thomas Hardy, an architect by profession to draw up the plans. The house was further modernised in 1932 by the last Earl to live in Dorset when, as Lord Stavordale, he brought his bride to live at Summer Lodge.

When Margaret and Nigel Corbett purchased the property in 1979, they became only the second owners in nearly two centuries.

They converted Summer Lodge into a hotel and added extra bedrooms and a pool before the hotel came under new ownership in 2003.