The Pig in the Wall

This little piggy, the babe in the litter of Robin Hutson’s Pig hotels, is set in a crenellated Georgian house and former pub built into the city’s medieval wall. Inside, you find the group’s signature shabby-chic style, with scuffed bare floorboards, herbs in flowerpots, the odd stuffed owl. The granny’s attic aesthetic is deceptive: every piece has been chosen with an unerring eye by Robin’s wife Judy. There are only a dozen bedrooms, from the smallest in the eaves, with beamed and slanted ceiling, to a spacious room with a roll-top bath under the window, a barley-sugar-twist white four-poster and separate shower room. Unlike its siblings, this Pig doesn’t ham it up with huts and hideaways. It has neither restaurant nor vegetable garden; the deli uses produce grown at the mother Pig in Brockenhurst (see entry), a half-hour drive away. You eat in the lounge by the log-burner, choosing from dishes such as quiche, cured meats, curried red lentil stew and whole baked Shakespeare (a variety of red onion, as you like it, with chutney and sourdough). At breakfast there are continental options or a cooked ‘Piggy Pan’.