Powder your wig and imagine you’re arriving by sedan chair at this singular hotel, occupying a Georgian terrace and presented as a piece of living history. Some 30 years ago, self-styled ‘old gits’ Peter McKay and Douglas Blain bought the properties, close to Smithfield Market, and created a glorified B&B. They also own Hazlitt’s, London (see entry), and behind their apparent whimsy lies a deep impulse to preserve the old and beautiful. A fire burns in a clubby conservatory lounge, with well-stocked honesty bar and leafy patio. Bedrooms are replete with heavy silk curtains or shutters, impressive antiques, oil paintings and quaint vintage bathroom fittings, along with such modern comforts as air conditioning and a minibar. A ground-floor suite named after the founder of the nearby Charterhouse (because numbers are impersonal) has a carved four-poster and panelled sitting room. You can order dishes from a room-service menu, breakfast on delicious pastries and freshly squeezed orange juice, and dine in great restaurants in this trendy area, 
a den of thieves in Dickens’s day, nicknamed 
‘The Rookery’.