The word ‘boutique’ often gets overused when it comes to hotels, but with a mix of opulence and fashionable design, contemporary gadgetry and history these boutique hotels are a joy to behold. There’s always something to catch your eye in these magic places, from the art to the bespoke furniture. Here are the Good Hotel Guide’s top 10 boutique hotels.
Editor’s Choice 2017 Boutique Hotels
The Queensberry
Bath
‘A near-faultless stay.’ In a ‘great’ location – ‘so easily reached from the centre, yet so quiet’ – Laurence and Helen Beere’s ‘excellent’ hotel continues to please guests with its ‘personable, efficient’ staff, ‘delicious’ food and ‘generously sized’ rooms.
Old Parsonage
Oxford
With ‘excellent food and comfortable rooms’, Jeremy Mogford’s luxury hotel ‘never disappoints’, writes a trusted Guide correspondent, a regular guest, in 2016.
From £225 per night
The Rookery
London
Three’s a charm: in a trio of elegantly refurbished town houses near buzzy Smithfield Market, Peter McKay and Douglas Blain’s ‘outstanding’, ‘friendly’ small hotel has the rakish appeal of an 18th-century private gentlemen’s club.
From £258.00 per night
Number Thirty Eight Clifton
Bristol
Regular guests praise the ‘impeccable’ service and ‘well-appointed’ rooms at Adam Dorrien-Smith’s relaxed, modern B&B, in an ‘excellent’ location at the top of Clifton Downs.
From £115 per night
Artist Residence
Brighton
The electric-pink front door, opening onto Regency Square, gives it away: Charlotte and Justin Salisbury have created a ‘laid-back, bohemian’ town house hotel with ‘jazzy’ rooms, ‘young, friendly, efficient’ staff and ‘a range of fun art’.
From £90 per night
Kings Head Hotel
Cirencester
Mark and Alison Booth spent a king’s ransom to transform this medieval inn on the market square from staid to ‘state of the art’.
Edgar House
Chester
Tim Mills and Michael Stephen’s ‘highly enjoyable’ small hotel is ‘refreshingly different’, say Guide inspectors in 2016 – and not just for the honesty bar secreted in an old telephone kiosk.
From £199.00 per night
The Zetter Townhouse Marylebone
London
In a fitting modernisation of the former home of that great fabulist, Edward Lear, ‘a warm, inclusive atmosphere’ reigns over the Chinese ceramics, architectural plaster mouldings and assorted ornaments in this deliciously designed town house, a ten-minute walk from Hyde Park.
38 St Giles
Norwich
In an ‘excellent’ central location, this upmarket B&B, all fresh flowers and polished floors, has new owners, father-and-son team Dennis and George Bacon.
Sands Hotel
Margate
‘Sympathetically and stylishly refurbished’, Nick Conington’s Victorian seafront hotel is ‘on top of its game’, say Guide readers in 2016.