It could be the setting for a cracking Poirot novel. It is July 14, and Cotswolds country house hotel Lucknam Park is opening its Georgian doors the first time in four months. A reduced staff is busy polishing windows, clipping unruly hedges and setting out special trays at the reception desk (one for sanitised ballpoint pens, another for used ones).

Just fifteen of the 42 rooms and their canopied four-poster beds are occupied, meaning that the curious assortment of guests (including a journalist, an antique couple on Zimmer frames and a pair of Korean influencers wearing what appear to be frilly lab coats) wonder the leather-bound library, walled rose garden and arboretum in a state of uncanny solitude. The renowned spa is locked up, the bijou summer house too. The pool is drained dry. And in the world beyond, a global pandemic is simmering.

Its mile-long beech-lined drive and 500 acres of paddock and parkland have always lent Lucknam the air of being a world apart from the stresses of real life. This Covid-induced quiet is, however, unusual since its award-winning spa, Michelin-starred restaurant and refined service traditionally ensure that it hums at near-capacity. Today, occupancy is limited to 50 per cent and it rather suits both the hotel and my pretensions of grandeur. Wondering its stately rooms and grounds alone, I feel more like one of its historic residents than yet another modern grockle.

It also suits our plans. Lucknam has three self-catering cottages within its grounds, the largest and newest of which Squires Cottage is perfect not only for social distancing but also for multi-generational breaks. After four months of cruel separation from grandparents, all I want is to celebrate the resumption of hugs, so I take both children and my mother.

Squires has its own lavender-bordered garden, behind which is a charming childrens playground set bucolically against hay bales and horse fields, two tennis courts, and a five aside football pitch. The children borrow rackets, balls, bikes and helmets and, for the first time in four months, find themselves blissfully free to peddle and play beyond the spoilsport sight of their mother. I, meanwhile, am equally elated to read a book in peace, and to have an uninterrupted, unpixelated chat with my mother.

Squires has four double bedrooms (all gloriously marbled and under-floor-heated) and a vast, open-plan sitting room and kitchen with a dining table long enough for eight to celebrate. In ordinary times the dcor that anonymous hotel luxe defined by gargantuan TVs and papered feature walls would leave me cold.

Post-lockdown, however, I am gleeful to check out from real-life responsibilities and the rules of good taste and order a jubilantly OTT room service breakfast of French toast piled with bananas, hazelnuts and Nutella (currently delivered to the patio, and without the usual tray charge, to promote social distancing).

Pandemic alterations are all but invisible inside the cottage, but its influence is more evident in the main hotel. Staff in the reception and restaurant wear smart navy masks, matching their uniforms. Paper check-in documents are still in use, but pens are carefully separated into the aforementioned trays. Bar and restaurant menus are given the same treatment, while discreet hand sanitisers dot the public rooms.

There are, too, some obvious absences in usual service. A lesson in horse whispering or equine therapy at the hotels Equestrian Centre entrances us all, but the sight of the locked pool directly opening our cottage is dampener for my mother (an avid swimmer) and the children (enthusiastic splashers). Id give my left arm to use the spa. Thistles have pushed through the playgrounds rubber flooring during the empty months. Food service is charming but slow, presumably because of staff reductions.

Then theres the food itself. The casual, family-friendly Brasserie is another victim of Covid-closures, so we are offered its menu in the formal setting of the Michelin-starred Restaurant Hywel Jones. When our sea bass arrives overcooked and accompanied by similarly dry fries it is a blow. Especially as the wine list is stuck at Michelin prices.

Its also baffling because the rest of the food we are served is divine. The hotel has introduced picnics in response to the pandemic, so that guests can collect a wicker hamper and retreat into the hotels picturesque grounds. Inside ours are lobster rolls, sublime Scotch eggs, homemade crisps, individual trifles and more. We eat on a picnic blanket under a towering oak tree, giggling at the influencers taking endless selfies in the distance. It is exactly the tonic all three generations need. Right now, effortless social distancing on such a grand scale feels like the greatest of all luxuries a hotel can serve up.

Squire's Cottage sleeps eight and is available from 1,550 a night (lucknampark.co.uk)

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Freedom and peace on a Cotswolds family holiday - Telegraph.co.uk