Tin tabernacle: The Chapel at Walcot Hall in Shropshire A fine example of the non-conformist, colonial-style, tin-clad chapels that proliferated in the 19th century, this little beauty is hidden in woodland in Shropshire’s 30-acre Walcot Aboretum. The chapel sleeps four in two woody bedrooms (from £575 a week) and features stained-glass […]
Holidays, when I was child, rarely took us further than my grandparents’ smallholding in Somerset – only two counties away from our towny home in Cornwall. We slept on lumpy mattresses under a thatched roof, woke up to crowing cockerels and fresh eggs fried in lard, watched by a herd […]
Goodbye boarding house, hello boutique hotel. Margate’s new generation of places to stay is all about cool Independents – guest houses, pubs with rooms and some quirky one offs. Our top ten includes more than one townhouse, a rock-and-roll guest house, an art deco B&B, a jazzed-up vintage caravan and a prison cell.
Latest hot hut alert: Two off-grid eco cabins made from sustainably-sourced wood. Solar power. High insulation. Bio-fuel fireplace. Comfy bed (duvet and pillows made from home-spun merino wool). Bathroom. Sea views. And I’m liking the sound of the ‘secret seaside garden’ in which they ‘nestle’ (we don’t generally do ‘nestling’ […]
Introducing our current hot list of self-catering ‘cottages’ – including shepherds huts in deepest Devon, vintage railway carriages in Cornwall, a Scottish island eyrie, a dinky cottage overlooking Polperro’s fishing harbour and a time-warped tin hut in rural Somerset. They are booking up fast for 2023, but there’s always next year…
In Somerset’s Wedmore Vale, this traditional coaching inn turned gastro pub offers quirky rooms and great food.
This year’s batch of new hotels include Mollie’s Motel and Diner, (pictured), the Eden Project’s first venture into accommodation, two fresh-faced Graduates (Oxford and Cambridge get one each), a converted Georgian prison and a Safari-tent campsite on an inland surfing lake. Hotels begin to open from 17 May and business is brisk with some booked up already until at least September.
Despite the challenges facing the hospitality industry, it’s business as usual for some enterprising hoteliers – in fact 2020 has been something of a bumper year for exciting new openings. Our list of eight new hotels reveals a trend for rejuvenating listed landmark buildings: three are Grade I listed; the […]
The 2020 Giro d’Italia is on (started in Palermo today, finishes in Rome on 25 October, Covid permitting). Dave (pictured here on an Alpine climb) is glued. I’m not (how long exactly is it on for?). So, this seems a good time to update a round-up of places to stay that will suit both cyclists and their non-cycling partners. From the Welsh mountains to terrains in Spain, here we go…
Most of eye-traveller’s favourite places to stay in the UK are on the coast – preferably right on the sea, a pebble’s throw from the beach (or so close you can smell the salt in the air). Our hot-list is big on Cornwall, but we’ve also included boltholes in Devon, Dorset, Lancashire, East Sussex and County Durham.