Jeake’s House

‘Beautiful Rye, cobbled hilly streets, higgledy-piggledy alleyways – enchanting, and so was Jeake’s House,’ writes a trusted reader about Jenny Hadfield’s beguiling B&B. The creeper-swathed property brings together 17th-century buildings that have served as a wool store, school, chapel and Quaker Meeting House. This was once home to American novelist Conrad Aiken, who wrote for The New Yorker as ‘Samuel Jeake Jr.’; four-poster bedrooms up ‘creaking staircases’ are named after him and some of the luminaries he entertained here. Radclyffe Hall is pretty, with toile fabrics, Malcolm Lowry light and airy, with a roll-top bath and walk-in shower. A ‘tight double’ was ‘very traditional (no boutique funk here), clean, but with the smallest cupboard of a shower room’. Another Guide trusty loved the atmospheric honesty bar, ‘the deep red walls’ of the galleried breakfast room, hung with portraits. Breakfast brings ‘a delicious choice of traditional (bacon and eggs) and modern (avocado on sourdough)’, smoked haddock and devilled kidneys. Medieval Rye is a touristic honeypot, so access to parking is a boon. (Joanna Gibbon, RB)