2023 Editor's Choice Quirky Hotels
Editor’s Choice Quirky Hotels
Southernhay House - Complimentary Cocktail Special Offer
Exeter
A Roman Doric portico makes a swanky statement about this Grade II listed Georgian house, but within lies a stylish yet relaxed and fun boutique hotel.
The Dial House - 'Free Bottle of Fizz' September Special Offer
Norwich
Highly idiosyncratic and seriously fun, Hannah Springham and Andrew Jones’s hotel features bedrooms themed on the Georgian Grand Tour and Victorian global gallivanting.
Jeake’s House
Rye
Swathed with creepers and bedecked with flowers, this wildly atmospheric B&B stands on a cobbled street in a medieval citadel with views over Romney Marsh.
Howtown Hotel
Penrith
If you want a hotel with hi-tech wizardry and hot tubs, this place is not for you, but ‘if you are happy with traditional hospitality’ and ‘like to be cosseted, Howtown Hotel will do nicely’.
The Rookery
London
Hip eateries and bars have supplanted hovels and bawdy houses in this once-notorious area, but behind the 18th-century facade of three shop-houses Georgian London lives on.
The Gunton Arms
Thorpe Market
‘A fun take on a gallery crossed with an old boozer and a good-value one at that’, a former steward’s house in a 1,000-acre deer park is now an ‘anything-but-traditional’ pub-with-rooms, say inspectors.
The 25 Boutique B&B
Torquay
This delightfully eccentric boutique B&B, a stroll from Torquay’s seafront, has won numerous awards for its singular style and luxurious standards.
Castle Leslie Estate
Glaslough
The Leslie clan's High Victorian pile overlooking a lake is a stupendous trove of Grand Tour treasures and family lore.
The Old Railway Station
Petworth
Readers report transports of delight this year after staying at this B&B, occupying surely Britain’s prettiest disused station, a former stop on the Mid-Sussex line in the South Downs national park.
The Fife Arms
Braemar
Swiss gallerists Iwan and Manuela Wirth have had an artistic fling at this Victorian coaching inn in a Cairngorms village famed for its Highland Games.
2022 Editor's Choice Quirky Hotels
Editor’s Choice Quirky Hotels
Widbrook Grange - Romance in the Cotswolds Special Offer
Bradford-on-Avon
You may feel you have tried one too many of the huge selection of gins here when spot items such as a sheep made from spark plugs or a bicycle made over into a basin stand. Tastefully upcycled paraphernalia abounds, with a top-hat lampshade here, a dressmaker’s form there.
Cley Windmill
Cley-next-the-Sea
Stay in a room with a door leading onto a platform encircling the mill, or sign a waiver to book the Wheel Room above, reached by a steep ladder. Rising from the reeds by the River Glaven, the windmill also has a circular dining room at its base.
Westmorland Hotel
Penrith
This isn’t your normal motorway service station: Tebay, created by the Dunning family when the M6 carved up their hill farm, has quiet rooms overlooking the fells and fresh farm produce in the restaurant (no Greggs here). It’s a scenic stop off for drivers en route to Scotland.
Belle Tout Lighthouse
Eastbourne
If you book the Keeper’s Loft in the tower of this former lighthouse, you will have to climb a ladder to bed (there are other rooms in the adjoining house). The lantern room has 360-degree views of the English Channel, the Seven Sisters and the South Downs; it’s good for star gazing, too.
Roundwood House
Mountrath
Check out the library in the double-height stables dedicated to the history of the evolution of civilisation before a delicious dinner, served with a serenade from chef patron Paddy Flynn. The atmosphere is so convivial that guests often end up chatting until late – luckily, breakfast is served until 11am.
Monachyle Mhor
Lochearnhead
It’s not all farmhouse traditional in this little haven in the Scottish hills – you can book a three-storey glass and wood tree pod, or stay in a 1950s wagon, in a ferry cabin or in yurts. The main building houses a bar with funky Italian stools and a white lounge with vintage chairs.
From £97.50 per night
The Star Inn at Harome
Helmsley
Good food is a given in this thatched Michelin-starred pub on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors. Less expected are the rooms in farm buildings across the road, which might feature a snooker table, a piano, a rope-slung bed or a hunting theme.
Llanthony Priory Hotel
Abergavenny
Rooms may be simple in the old prior’s quarters, but they do come with views of the impressive ruins of the 12th-century Augustinian abbey. There’s a cosy stone-flagged bar and a vaulted dining room with large black range and gleaming brass and copper.
Artist Residence London
London
Expect a buzzy vibe and an air of boho chic in this London pad, where bedrooms might feature a set of decorator’s steps to hold bathroom products next to a freestanding bath, a Smeg fridge in an old fireplace, or a coffee table on wheels. Public rooms are used as gallery space, with neon pop art.
2021 Editor's Choice Quirky Hotels
Editor’s Choice Quirky Hotels
Talland Bay Hotel - 'Meet the Makers' Special Offer
Talland-By-Looe
Whether you’re sitting on a zebra-print sofa looking at the 3D Mickey Mouse on the wall or perched on a wooden bench with giant budgies in the garden with its fairy statues, you’ll find this coastal hotel ‘curiouser and curiouser’.
The Dial House - 'Free Bottle of Fizz' September Special Offer
Norwich
Rooms are geographically themed so you can stay in Africa, with vaulted beams and slipper bath, or in Parisian Garret with its antiques. A revolving bookcase reveals a secret dining room, and everything is for sale in the retail wing.
The Ceilidh Place
Ullapool
The Urquhart family’s hotel has only 13 rooms, but it also has a bookshop, coffee shop and events space as well as the more traditional bar and restaurant. There’s even a bunkhouse across the car park for those travelling on a budget.
Belle Tout Lighthouse
Eastbourne
Where better than a lighthouse lantern room for superb sea views? There are panoramic vistas of the South Downs, too, and of the night sky. You can stay in the atmospheric Keeper’s Loft in the tower, where the bed is reached by ladder.
No.15 by GuestHouse
Bath
The Georgian facade may be traditional but there’s a world of eccentricity within: the spa is in a former coal cellar, room keys are kept in a doll’s house, and The Dispensary restaurant holds the contents of an antique chemist’s shop.
The Old Railway Station
Petworth
A first-class stay at this converted station is just the ticket, especially if you book one of the romantic Pullman carriages. Check-in is at the old ticket booth, with breakfast served on the platform or in the original Waiting Room.
Tuddenham Mill
Newmarket
The waterwheel is in the bar and the gearing apparatus of this 18th-century mill is on show in the dining room, with its original beams. Some bedrooms have access to the millstream, where swans glide in sight of the enormous chimney.
Twr y Felin Hotel
St Davids
It’s not every day you find a contemporary art museum in a Georgian windmill. Works include Marcus Oleniuk’s photographs of St Davids peninsula: there are magnificent views of the real thing from the observatory above the Tower Suite.
2020 Editor's Choice Quirky Hotels
Editor’s Choice Quirky Hotels
Widbrook Grange - Romance in the Cotswolds Special Offer
Bradford-on-Avon
A Georgian farmhouse filled with upcycled agricultural salvage might seem an odd sort of sister hotel for a Scottish hunting lodge, but here, as at Shieldaig Lodge (see Gairloch), it’s all about heritage.
Howtown Hotel
Penrith
If you want a hotel with hi-tech wizardry and hot tubs, this place is not for you, but ‘if you are happy with traditional hospitality’ and ‘like to be cosseted, Howtown Hotel will do nicely’.
Cley Windmill
Cley-next-the-Sea
‘In an idyllic spot’, amid 'reed beds on the former quayside on the River Glaven’, this five-storey, 19th-century tower mill is home to an unusual B&B.
The Gunton Arms
Thorpe Market
‘A fun take on a gallery crossed with an old boozer and a good-value one at that’, a former steward’s house in a 1,000-acre deer park is now an ‘anything-but-traditional’ pub-with-rooms, say inspectors.
The Pig on the Beach
Studland
There is a fairy-tale aspect with more than a hint of Hogwarts to this 1820s marine villa with a sandy beach at the bottom of the garden in a village that inspired Noddy’s Toy Town.
Austwick Hall
Austwick
Austwick Hall has closed down. With its grandly furnished rooms, extravagant decorative style and sweeping Italianate garden, this Yorkshire Dales country house B&B has the flavour of a stately home.
Low Mill Guest House
Bainbridge
An 18th-century watermill on the River Bain with most of its parts still operational makes both a charismatic and peaceful B&B from which to explore the surrounding gentle hills of Wensleydale.
Artist Residence Oxfordshire
South Leigh
With funky artwork in the bar and attractive salvaged furniture, this is not your conventional thatched village inn, but it brims with a quirky charm and a warm, open-to-everyone welcome.
2019 Editor's Choice Quirky Hotels
Editor’s Choice Quirky Hotels
Knockinaam Lodge - Summer Special Offer
Portpatrick
Churchill loved his long, hot baths. Book the room he slept in at this former coastal hunting lodge (where he laid plans for D-Day with Eisenhower), and you can wallow in the very same enamelled concrete tub.
The George of Stamford - 'Irresistible Stay' Special Offer
Stamford
The gallows sign no longer hangs across the road from this historic inn, but the old waiting rooms are still marked ‘London’ and ‘York’, from its days as a stagecoach stop. Look out for the portrait and walking sticks of England’s one-time heaviest man.
From £195.00 per night
The Dial House - 'Free Bottle of Fizz' September Special Offer
Norwich
More than a thousand weird and wonderful objects are for sale at this Grand-Tour-themed small hotel, eclectically furnished throughout. Sleep in the Raj room; buy a white elephant, enter the Natural History room through a display case door.
Lewtrenchard Manor
Okehampton
Renaissance woodwork. An ornate Jacobean plaster ceiling. A Rococo fireplace flanked by putti. The extravagant 19th-century rebuilding of an ancient manor house was the work of squire, parson and prolific writer Sabine Baring-Gould.
Hazlitt’s
London
A cluster of Soho Georgian houses here combine as a boutique hotel brimming with wit and studied eccentricity – antiques and curios, oil paintings, throne loos, books, busts, vintage beds. Public rooms are patrolled by Sir Godfrey the cat.
The Pig on the Beach
Studland
Whimsical touches at this neo-Gothic fantasy include wood carvings from a Portuguese palace, a coat of arms prop from Pirates of the Caribbean. Sleep in a shepherd’s hut, a thatched dovecote or a room with a loo with a view.
Roundwood House
Mountrath
Many hotels have a ‘library’, sometimes just a token bookshelf, but in the grounds of this Georgian mansion and lovable, idiosyncratic hotel, a galleried library contains a thousand tomes dedicated to the evolution of civilisation.
The Star Inn at Harome
Helmsley
There is a piano in room 8 at this estimable restaurant-with-rooms, should you wish to practise the Moonlight Sonata at dead of night. Or pot the black at the snooker table in room 5. Michelin-starred cooking raises more smiles.
The Old Railway Station
Petworth
Just the ticket for train buffs! Guests check in at the former parcels office at this beautiful disused station, sleep in a colonial style bedroom, or a Pullman carriage with Edwardian fittings, take breakfast in the waiting room.
From a retreat favoured by Dylan Thomas to a suite in a windmill, views of Snowdonia to a former priory inhabited by Augustinian monks, the UK has a variety of unique hotel experiences to choose from. Each beautifully decorated and offering its own brand of warmth and hospitality, there’s an abundance of details and experiences that make for a quirky getaway.
Whether it’s interiors that inspire a little bit of magic or rooms that are geographically themed to transport you to an African safari or a Parisian Garret. Perhaps you will sleep in an observatory tower or a converted chapel. Travel to a lighthouse brought back from disrepair, or dine in a restaurant that’s decorated like an antique chemist’s shop. Or get whisked away with a night in a romantic Pullman carriage.