The sorts of places made for moonlight and music, some hotels really are made for romance. So from four poster beds to beautiful views, decadent dinners to country walks, rich histories of love through the ages and picturesque buildings with spiral staircases, these are the hotels to head to with loved ones. Amongst the collection there’s even an island hotel for the ultimate getaway. Here are the Good Hotel Guide’s top 10 romantic hotels.
Editor's Choice 2019 Romantic Hotels
Editor’s Choice Romantic Hotels
Hartwell House - Summer Special Offer
Aylesbury
Louis XVIII paid £500 a year to house his court in exile at this sublime mansion in an Arcadian landscape. For a little less you can spend two nights in a Royal Four- Poster room filled with paintings and antiques.
From £200 per night
Pen-y-Dyffryn - Up to 15% Discount & Complimentary Afternoon Tea Special Offer
Oswestry
Long walks in tranquil countryside, tea by a blazing log fire, a bedroom with a double spa bath or private stone-walled patio… This small hotel close to the Welsh border offers a perfect getaway à deux.
Drakes - 'Romantic Stay and Dine Getaway in Brighton' Special Offer
Brighton
For Jane Austen Brighton was a ‘scene of dissipation and vice’. So much the better for an amorous weekend! Sybarites choose a room with a freestanding bath in the floor-to-ceiling window, at this Regency hotel with sea-facing cocktail bar.
Strattons
Swaffham
Theatrical bedrooms set the scene for seduction at this Palladian-villa. There’s the opulent Red Room, with Jacobean four-poster bed; Opium with free-standing bath; exotic Fantouche and Venetian murals in Seagull and Boudoir.
Castle Leslie
Glaslough
A 1,000-acre estate with lakes and woodland surrounds this Victorian pile. It is filled with paintings, antiques – a grand piano, a della Robbia fireplace. Every bedroom has its own story. Eagle’s Nest has a balcony with lake views.
Glenapp Castle
Ballantrae
Sea-facing rooms at this Victorian fantasy castle in landscaped grounds, gaze across the Firth of Clyde to Ailsa Craig. Some have a half-tester bed. Order a cocktail in teapot in the restored tea rooms in the walled garden.
Lime Wood
Lyndhurst
A mansion in the New Forest, a stellar clientele, sublime Italian food – could you get more romantic? Apparently, yes. Lime Wood now has ‘the UK’s sexiest bedroom’, a cabin cantilevered over a small lake with a private island and alfresco bath and wood-burning stove.
Portobello Hotel
London
In raffish Notting Hill of rom-com fame, this wacky boutique hotel offers everything for couples, from ‘cosy doubles’ with exotic murals to ‘signature rooms’, one with circular bed, another with a
four-poster from Hampton Court Palace.
four-poster from Hampton Court Palace.
The Painswick
Painswick
For that dream date, here is a Palladian mansion with Italianate loggia and glamorous cocktail bar in a picturesque Cotswolds village. George’s suite has a four-poster, a sitting room with log burner, a stone balcony with blissful views.
Prestonfield
Edinburgh
Lady Anne Dick, former chatelaine of this 16th-century mansion, scandalised polite Edinburgh society with her ‘coarse’ verses and cross-dressing, and there is still something deliciously louche about all
the swags and velvets and sumptuousness here.
the swags and velvets and sumptuousness here.
Editors Choice 2018 Romantic Hotels
Editor’s Choice Romantic Hotels
Gliffaes - 'Explore Wales' Summer Special Offer
Crickhowell
‘Wonderfully located’ above the River Usk, this Victorian former vicar’s house has a ‘timeless quality’.
Knockinaam Lodge - Three Night Break with Belfast Day Trip Special Offer
Portpatrick
In the lea of the cliffs, overlooking a private beach on the rugged Galloway coast, Sian and David Ibbotson’s Victorian hunting lodge offers a great sense of escape.
Pen-y-Dyffryn - Up to 15% Discount & Complimentary Afternoon Tea Special Offer
Oswestry
‘We always look forward to staying.’ Miles and Audrey Hunter’s ‘tranquil’ small hotel on the Welsh border received a flurry of praise from new and regular visitors this year.
driftwood hotel
Porthscatho
‘Wow! This was good.’ A regular Guide reader offered high praise after visiting Paul and Fiona Robinson’s ‘delightful’ hotel that gazes across Gerrans Bay on the Roseland peninsula.
The Airds Hotel
Port Appin
‘Highly, highly recommended. We shall return.’ Much praise from a reader for this ‘wonderful little boutique hotel’ with ‘delightful’ views across Loch Linnhe and the Morvern mountains.
Gregans Castle Hotel
Ballyvaughan
On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.
Burgh Island Hotel
Bigbury-on-Sea
A consortium headed by Office Space in Town has just acquired hotel space in Devon. This gleaming white Art Deco hotel on a tidal island, sold by its former owners after 17 years, is undergoing a multi-million-pound make-over,
Old Whyly
East Hoathly
‘As wonderful as ever,’ writes a regular visitor to Sarah Burgoyne’s ‘charmingly run’ Grade II listed, red brick Georgian manor house adjoining a private estate, close to Lewes.
The Painswick
Painswick
‘In a pretty south Cotswolds village’, this is a ‘fun, relaxing place’. A Palladian mansion with Arts and Crafts refinements and an Italianate logia, it was recently made over for the Calcot Collection.
Ardanaiseig
KILCHRENAN
Ardanaiseig closed as a hotel at the end of November 2017. It will be relaunched in 2018 a venue catering for groups, weddings, and corporate functions.
Editors Choice 2017 Romantic Hotels
Editor’s Choice Romantic Hotels
Gliffaes - 'Explore Wales' Summer Special Offer
Crickhowell
‘Wonderfully located’ above the River Usk, this Victorian former vicar’s house has a ‘timeless quality’.
Cliveden House - Three for Two Short Break
Taplow
Having hosted everyone from Chaplin to Churchill, this ‘superbly refurbished’ Italianate mansion seduces visitors with the prospect of ‘luxurious country house living’.
The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa
Bath
‘Behind the dramatic facade lies a beautiful garden,’ writes a reader in praise of this hotel and spa with its green oasis at the centre of a divine Georgian crescent.
Langar Hall
Langar
Readers ‘had a really lovely, relaxing stay’ at Lila Arora’s apricot-washed Georgian mansion, approached by an avenue of lime trees amid sheep-grazed pastures.
Burgh Island Hotel
Bigbury-on-Sea
A consortium headed by Office Space in Town has just acquired hotel space in Devon. This gleaming white Art Deco hotel on a tidal island, sold by its former owners after 17 years, is undergoing a multi-million-pound make-over,
Ballyvolane House
Fermoy
A mildly bohemian air filters through the Green family’s wisteria-hung Georgian country house hotel, bordered by bluebell woods.
The Old Railway Station
Petworth
Now a ‘gracious’ B&B, this restored Victorian train station and princely Pullman carriages on disused tracks ooze the romance of travel’s golden age.
Newforge House
Magheralin
A Georgian house in extensive grounds near the Lagan river, John and Louise Mathers’s ‘first-rate’ guest house is an ‘outstanding’ place to stay.
Portobello Hotel
London
It may have put its years of rock’n’roll excess behind it, but this hotel on ‘an elegant street in Notting Hill’ has lost none of its eclectic charm.
Ardanaiseig
KILCHRENAN
Ardanaiseig closed as a hotel at the end of November 2017. It will be relaunched in 2018 a venue catering for groups, weddings, and corporate functions.
Editors Choice 2016 Romantic Hotels
Editor’s Choice Romantic Hotels
La Sablonnerie - Suite Upgrade Special Offer
Little Sark
A horse-drawn carriage brings guests to this rose-covered, 16th-century farmhouse on a car-free island.
driftwood hotel
Porthscatho
‘Wow! This was good.’ A regular Guide reader offered high praise after visiting Paul and Fiona Robinson’s ‘delightful’ hotel that gazes across Gerrans Bay on the Roseland peninsula.
Gilpin Hotel and Lake House
Windermere
‘They just keep making it better every year,’ writes a trusted correspondent, of this luxurious country house hotel in Lakeland countryside.
Tor Cottage
Lifton
A trug of sparkling wine, organic home-made fudge, fresh fruit and flowers awaits guests at the ‘lovely’ Maureen Rowlatt’s rather special B&B by a stream, in a private valley on the edge of Dartmoor.
The Old Rectory
Boscastle
‘What a super place to stay for tackling some of the Coastal Path; it ticks all possible boxes,’ writes a Guide inspector in 2018 of Sally and Chris Searle’s historic B&B.