For a break from the traditional, try a modern hotel where you’re more likely to encounter abstract art, tablet-based technology and infinity pools than tea and coffee-making facilities or trouser presses. From cutting-edge architecture to pioneering standards of sustainability, these nine modern UK hotels blend state-of-the-art facilities with the sort of hospitality that never goes out of fashion.
Modern hotels
St Brides Spa Hotel
Saundersfoot
‘The sea views, over Saundersfoot Bay, are wonderful and exceptional’ at this family-friendly hotel, perched above a village in the Pembrokeshire Coast national park.
The Scarlet
Mawgan Porth
Clean, contemporary design, eco credentials and ‘wonderful views’ attract guests to this voguish, adults-only hotel overlooking ‘a classic Cornish bay’.
Brocco on the Park
Sheffield
‘There’s a vibrant atmosphere’ at Tiina Carr’s ‘stylish, Scandi-chic’ hotel, in a ‘buzzy neighbourhood’ of shops and cafés.
Tigh an Dochais
Broadford
Every room from Neil Hope and Lesley Unwin’s modern, architect-designed building has ‘glorious views’ of Broadford Bay and the Cuillin mountains.
CitizenM Bankside
London
‘Budget’ is far from ‘boring’ at this style-led, ‘excellent-value’ hotel within easy access of the city’s financial and cultural quarters.
Kaywana Hall
Kingswear
In acres of mature woodland, Tony Pithers and Gordon Craig’s uber-modern home (one of five ‘butterfly’ houses in Devon) is all curving stairways, unexpected angles and walls of glass.
The Zetter
London
Heralded as the ultimate in cool when it opened in 2004, this modish hotel, in a converted Victorian warehouse, remains ‘on good form’.
Tebay Services Hotel
Penrith
‘There’s a feeling of complete well-being about the place,’ write Guide readers in 2017 of the Dunning family’s hotel and upmarket farm shop just off the M6.
Cathedral 73
Cardiff
Across the park and the River Taff from Cardiff Castle, the service guests receive at this stylishly refurbished Victorian town house hotel is positively royal: a butler, personal chef and chauffeur-driven vintage Rolls-Royce are at the ready.