The Pig at Bridge Place

‘Possibly the best of the litter’, the sixth in Robin Hutson’s Pig smallholding occupies a Grade I listed mansion, built in 1701, almost within the sound of Canterbury bells. ‘Everything is deliciously quirky,’ a Guide insider reports, from posters in the loos recalling the house’s days as a rock venue, to the bar ‘done out in deep burgundy, including the ornate ceiling’. The ‘beautiful decor’ is the work of Judy Hutson, with ‘shabby-chic bedrooms, some with beams, one with gold-scalloped cornicing and mezzanine bathroom’. They range from ‘extremely small’ (albeit one large enough for an ‘impressive oak four-poster’), through hop pickers’ huts, to the two-storey ‘Barn’. As with all the Pigs, the kitchen garden is the engine of the hotel, supplying produce straight to the kitchen. You can go hog wild in the greenhouse restaurant with ‘open kitchen serving Pigalicious food’, home grown or locally sourced. ‘I still dream of the chorizo wood-fired flatbreads served outside from the garden oven.’ There is a ‘wonderful breakfast choice (of note are the carrot and beetroot juices, eggs from their own hens, gluten-free fig and walnut bars)’. (JK, MAS)