Lamb House is a handsome Georgian merchant’s house
Credit: National Trust
When the author Henry James sought a modest bolthole after a play failed in London, he chose this handsome Georgian merchant’s house in the pretty little town of Rye. He went on to write several books here. A later owner was the comic author and essayist E F Benson, who set his Mapp & Lucia novels in and around Lamb House (the walled garden was the site of ferocious neighbourly competition in fruit, flower and veg growing). Both men wrote in the garden room, bombed in 1940, and in the Green Room (under restoration), still in the house today.
The recently renovated George Inn is an old familiar in Rye, now with redecorated rooms, popular bar and central location. One night from £122. For a full write-up and to book, read the Telegraph’s expert review.
Workhouse and Infirmary was built in 1824
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This forbidding block outside Southwell could be a prison or a factory. In fact, it was both – built in 1824 as a workhouse, reached via the ominously nicknamed “paupers’ path”, founded by a driven clergyman called the Reverend Becher. It is the most complete example we have; a reminder of the fate of the grindingly poor in times past. Today, you can see lengths of oakum – the tarred rope unpicked by inmates – and documentation including the register of births and deaths. Staff work hard to explain this lost world as gently as possible to the children of today.
The Saracen’s Head is a cosy old inn in the centre of Southwell, a stroll from the famous Minster, with 27 charmingly wonky rooms and a new chef at the helm. From £110 per night.
Rainham Hall is a perfectly symmetrical Georgian design
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Rainham looks like a doll’s house; a perfectly symmetrical Georgian shipping merchant’s home-office in the Queen Anne style, sitting behind elegant iron gates near its own wharf in the London borough of Havering. It was built for the wharf’s owner, whose brother sent the mahogany for the (slightly bodged) staircase from Honduras. In the mid-1960s it became home to the Condé Nast photographer Anthony Denney, who began a programme of repair and restoration. Today, the house is full of life, with local volunteers doing everything from sewing to guided tours to community gardening and a great changing programme of exhibitions. Limited opening.
The DoubleTree by Hilton London – Tower of London hotel is two minutes’ walk from Fenchurch Street Station, for the direct train to Rainham (23 minutes.) From £129 per night. For a full write-up and to book, read the Telegraph’s expert review.
Explore Carmarthenshire at Dinefwr
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The Rhys (anglicised to Rice) family have lived in this beautiful part of Wales for centuries, clinging onto their estate through many vicissitudes. Newton House, built in the 1660s, had a gothic updo 200 years later, its corner pinnacles giving it a distinctly French look. The house is full of low-key delights: the Landscape Room contains four late 17th-century “bird’s eye view” paintings, there are servants’ bells and family portraits and furniture arranged in the Edwardian manner. Spot ancient trees, fallow deer, rare breed White Park Cattle and Dinefwr Castle (run by Cadw) in the Capability Brown landscape, now a National Nature Reserve.
The Dinefwr Deer Lodge is a cosy, open-plan National Trust cottage for two on the edge of the Dinefwr estate with access to the parkland. Three nights from £325.
Lindisfarne Castle is on Holy Island
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Half the fun of this castle-turned-country-house is getting there. It’s on Holy Island, home to a 7th-century priory and monastery and connected to the Northumberland coast by a tidal causeway, a frisson of danger only slightly dissipated by the packed car park on arrival. The castle was a Tudor fighting machine, but Edward Lutyens pulled its teeth in 1906, creating a fashionable retreat for the owner of Country Life magazine. Not all guests agreed; they have Lytton Strachey’s indignant letters about how uncomfortable he was. But it has fabulous views and a walled garden planted by Gertrude Jekyll standing in isolation 10 minutes’ walk away.
English Heritage has converted the Coastguard’s Cottage into a peaceful three-bedroom holiday let – from £560 for a three-night mid-week stay (book as early as you can).
Brockhampton Estate was built in the 1420s
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The delightful, half-timbered Brockhampton Estate, surrounded by acres of working orchards in northeast Herefordshire, has been much altered over the centuries. It was built in the 1420s near a Norman chapel, the ruins of which still stand. The sweet little Tudor gatehouse may have been used for illegal Catholic worship – look for timber “Vs” indicating the Virgin Mary – and was certainly used to indicate the family’s growing wealth. The house was saved by a retired Victorian architect, who rescued the beamed Great Hall and Buttery among other things. Unpretentious furnishings and sturdy timber furniture belong to an earlier, simpler age.
Huntlands Farm is a working farm and B&B with six large rooms, 10 minutes’ drive from Brockhampton. From £93 per night. For a full write-up and to book, read the Telegraph’s expert review.
Visit the Kent countryside and Smallhythe Place
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The Victorian actress Ellen Terry and her stage partner Henry Irving were driving her trap through the Kent countryside when she fell for Smallhythe, a 16th-century cottage with deep eaves and mellow timber walls. She bought it in 1899 and kept it for 30 years as a place of refuge and hospitality, her daughter Edie living next door. After Ellen’s death, Edie turned the barn into a theatre and the house into a memorial, with sketches, portraits and costumes worn by Terry and Irving. While one bedroom has become an homage to the Lyceum Theatre in Covent Garden, the scene of some of her greatest triumphs, the rest remains much as it was.
The Print House (named after local boy William Caxton) is a gastropub with a walled garden in Tenterden, three miles from Smallhythe. It has six sleek rooms, from £110 per night.
Coleton Fishacre is a country house east of the Dart Estuary
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In 1926 Rupert D’Oyly Carte – now chairman of his father’s Savoy Hotel and Opera company – and his wife took possession of their new country house east of the Dart Estuary in South Devon. Coleton Fishacre is a late arts and crafts design that manages to be cosy, expansive and fashionable all at once; its fixtures and fittings are impeccably deco, its lush valley garden thrives in the mild climate, and it has a private tidal bathing pool. Look for the wind clock with a painting of the South Hams and pieces by designers such as René Lalique and Marion Dorn.
The one-bedroom former Chauffeur’s Flat above the former “motor house” has access to the grounds and the South West Coastal Path. Two nights from £494.
Castle Ward is a house full of eccentricities
The Palladian facade of Castle Ward, with its back to Strangford Lough, looks patrician, even staid. Walk round the back, however, and it’s all gothic windows, ogee arches and finials. The house embodies the wildly differing tastes of Bernard Ward, later Viscount Bangor, and his wife Lady Ward. While her Morning Room ceiling imitated Westminster Abbey’s Henry VII Chapel (a nod to royal antecedents), his side aimed at neoclassical rationality and elegance. The marriage ended, leaving a house full of eccentricities, such as the cases full of pugilist stuffed squirrels in boxing gloves (funnily enough, red squirrels have been released in the grounds recently). It also has beautifully presented servants’ quarters.
Choose from a bright room in The Cuan, a hotel, bar and restaurant in Strangford Village, from £139 per night. Their five-bedroom seaside property, Cuan House, sleeps 13.
Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal is part of a Unesco World Heritage Site
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Cistercian survivor or picturesque ruin? Take your pick – but there is nothing more beautiful than seeing Fountains Abbey, the largest set of monastic ruins in Britain and part of a Unesco World Heritage Site, rising from the mist on a foggy winter morning. The monks who built it sought purity and solitude, which is reflected in the ruined abbey’s simple lines. An 18th-century owner of the adjoining Studley Royal estate, following the craze for the picturesque, made it a central feature of his water gardens. Join hour-long tours, twice a day, seven days a week.
The Sawley Arms is a gastro pub with seven bedrooms, an apartment and bunkhouse, about 10 minutes’ drive from Fountains Abbey. From £180 per night.
Cliveden Gardens in Buckinghamshire
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From above, the vast mansion of Cliveden, with its tongue of lawn and carpet bedding looks like a giant bagatelle board, high above the River Thames. Today’s house was built by Charles Barry in the 1850s and is now a luxury hotel, so National Trust access is limited (see the website). Even without access you can enter the restored “sounding chamber” from the 17th-century South Terrace, find Roman sarcophagi by the front hedges and explore the Octagon Chapel, now a family mausoleum. Take an electric canoe ride on the river, partly for the view of Spring Cottage, a player in the Profumo Affair of the 1960s, when the house was owned by the Astors.
In the Cliveden House Hotel, obviously, from £540 per night. If that’s a bit steep, cross the river to Cookham and stay at the Bel and Dragon on the High Street, which has five attractive rooms, from £120 per night. For a full write-up and to book, read the Telegraph’s expert review.
Avebury Manor reflects different periods
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This gabled and chimneyed manor has been sitting on the edge of Avebury since the early 16th century and might still be dreaming away in peace were it not for the arrival of the Scottish marmalade heir Alexander Keiller in the 1930s. Keiller cleared away overgrowth and villagers’ cottages alike to reveal the great stone circles and avenues that we know today. Each room in the house reflects a different period, including Keiller’s study and morning room; it has the prettiest cottage garden, a mediaeval church over the wall – and a lot of old stones nearby. Note that Avebury Manor is currently closed following flooding in January.
The Peppermill is a 16-room boutique hotel in a period building in Devizes, a market town with lots of charm and the excellent Wiltshire Museum. From £162 per night. For a full write-up and to book, read the Telegraph’s expert review.
Felbrigg Hall has a walled garden and over 500 acres of woods
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The word everyone uses to describe Felbrigg Hall is “charming”, from its symmetrical Jacobean facade to its walled garden and over 500 acres of woods and parkland. It stands just south of Cromer on the north Norfolk coast, back firmly to the sea, and was rebuilt in the 1620s with many additions since. The collections include a Cabinet Room built for Grand Tour treasures, exquisite wallpaper, novelties such as a magic lantern and children’s toys and a library with such treats as “A Dissertation on Whoring” and a treatise on how to cure gout.
On the estate, choose from dinky Mustard Pot Cottage for two or the four-bedroom Squire’s Retreat, a former laundry, and options in between. Sleeps eight, three nights from £607.
Chirk Castle was completed around 1295
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What a symbol of tamed menace Chirk Castle is: a low, drum-towered castle squatting on an outcrop above the confluence of the Dee and Ceiriog rivers, guarding the Welsh Marches. One of the last castles built by King Edward I, completed around 1295, its evolution into a country house began three centuries later under the ownership of the merchant adventurer Sir Thomas Myddelton. It has three staterooms, a Long Gallery added in the 16th century and a chapel repurposed as an Edwardian music room. Look for the wonderful 35ft-long pedigree scroll of the Myddelton family and the silver-chased chest, allegedly a gift from King Charles II.
Chirk Home Farm Cottage is in the castle grounds with its own enclosed garden, one of several Trust properties nearby. Sleeps four, three nights from £450.
Cragside sits on a hillside in Northumberland
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Like a gadget? The Victorian pleasure palace of Cragside was built for William Armstrong, the man whose Newcastle works produced the ships, cranes, bridges and armaments that powered British prosperity – and it’s full of them. The house, designed by Richard Norman Shaw, resembles a tiny Swiss town, with half-timbered gables and towers. Inside is central heating, a plunge bath, electric light, even a tiny lift, powered by the hydraulic system that is still in use today (look for the timber flume in the grounds, channelling the water), all co-existing with opulent interiors and vast fireplaces. The hillside landscaping includes a rock garden and the famous pinetum.
Copper Beech Cottages are four converted farm cottages in Rothbury, 10 minutes’ drive from Cragside. Beech Cottage, for example, sleeps four and costs from £850 forfour nights.
View ceramics, glass, textiles and paintings at Standen House
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What better place to see arts and crafts principles in full play than at Standen House, set in a froth of rhododendrons overlooking the Medway Valley and Ashdown Forest. It was built in the 1890s for James Beale, a wealthy solicitor who commissioned the architect Philip Webb to build a light-filled family home using vernacular style and traditional methods, but with the latest creature comforts. The interiors by Morris & Co reflect not only the Beales’ taste, along with ceramics, glass, textiles and paintings by the famous names of the day, but illustrate William Morris’s conundrum – that only the truly rich could afford his austere simplicity.
The Alexander Hotel and Utopia Spa is a 57-room contemporary hotel in the Jacobean manor house once lived in by the poet Shelley and his author wife Mary. From £199 per night. For a full write-up and to book, see the Telegraph’s expert review.
Explore an art collection and an array of gardens at Buscot Park
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You would never guess Buscot’s history of scandal, heartache and entrepreneurship from its restrained 18th-century exterior; the one thing its owners have had in common over the past 250 years is never being boring. Today’s occupant, Lord Faringdon, oversees the house, art collection and a marvellous array of gardens. On arrival, divert through the Four Seasons Garden and walk up the steps before veering off to the house. Inside, the Faringdon Collection is a delight, including Burne-Jones’s 1890s Briar Rose series in the Saloon and a charming, personal hang of mainly small 20th-century pieces in the Normanton Room upstairs.
Mollie’s Motel and Diner, designed by Soho House, is a chi chi 79-room hotel, American diner and stylishly expensive shop. From £70 per night. For a full write-up and to book, read the Telegraph’s expert review.
Coughton Court has been carefully preserved
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You don’t get more riveting history than that of Coughton, home to the Throckmorton family since 1409. During the Reformation they made the dangerous decision to remain worshipping Roman Catholics. A century later the house, by that time leased by Sir Everard Digby, played a key role in the desperate aftermath of the 1605 Catholic plot to blow up Parliament. Carefully preserved Catholic objects include a chemise said to have been worn by Mary Queen of Scots, and an Elizabethan document called the Tabula Eliensis. Look for the Throckmorton Coat in the Saloon, made in a single day “from the back of the sheep” for a huge bet.
Billesley Manor Hotel and Spa is equidistant from Coughton and Stratford-upon-Avon, about 15 minutes either way, with a range of rooms and suites. From £139 per night.
Mottisfont Abbey’s garden houses the National Trust’s collection of pre-1900 roses
Credit: National Trust
Mottisfont is a glorious patchwork of history; a 1930s neo-classical country retreat in a renovated Georgian house built around a Tudor palace sitting on the foundations of an Augustinian priory. From the 1930s, owners Gilbert and Maud Russell entertained a vivid circle of friends here and Maud’s second husband, the artist Boris Anrep, created two mosaics here. The mellow facade conceals the Derek Hill Collection of modern art and Rex Whistler’s theatrical faux gothic murals in the Saloon. Outside, the rose garden designed by Graham Stuart Thomas contains the National Trust’s collection of pre-1900 old-fashioned roses.
The Potters Heron Hotel is a thatched gastropub with 53 contemporary rooms, including a nice Cosy category. It’s a 15-minute drive from Mottisfont. From £108 per night.
This story was published in December 2023 and has been revised and updated.
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Publish date : 2024-05-03 07:00:00
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