The Dial House

You might fancy you are in a Parisian garret, in the mysterious east, on safari, or (mamma mia!) in a Venetian palazzo, when you book into Hannah Springham and Andrew Jones’s hotel, with rooms themed on the Georgian Grand Tour and Victorian globetrotting. Each room has a marble bathroom with a roll-top bath and drench shower, a record player to give vinyl a spin. China room, styled in blue and white, with bamboo-pattern wallpaper, has ‘a huge bed, two sash windows with working shutters’. Natural History has owl wallpaper, a bathroom concealed behind a cabinet of curiosities, glass doors to a decked terrace. The ‘charming, attentive’ staff are ‘helpful from the moment you enter the front door’. In a restaurant set across three dining rooms, Andrew’s menus reflect the principles of ‘fine produce, not fine dining’, with ingredients sourced direct from farmers, in dishes such as Swannington bavette steak cooked over sustainable charcoal, black garlic, kale, red wine jus; lentil and aubergine shepherd’s pie. ‘Breakfast, served in the spacious and airy Aga room, was of a similarly high standard.’ (S and MT)