Top 10 Country Hotels in the UK Country House Hotel Suggestions for England and Scotland

For many visitors, the dream idea of a UK country hotel is a charming house where a roaring fire crackles in the hearth, the house dog huddled next to it; Tea is served to guests leaving for country walks and dinners are gourmet banquets.

Sounds lovely right?

But if the farmhouse is a damp, drafty pile, a million miles from anything interesting with loaded guests, cooking poorly, and no activities to pass the time, the best farmhouse ideas can turn sour. .

Don’t worry – we’ve tested these recommended country hotels so you know what to expect and what we like about them. There may be others that are grander or more famous, but we like them for their comfortable, laid-back, and friendly charm.

El hotel Devonshire Arms Country House

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+44 1756 718100

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The original inn at The Devonshire Arms has welcomed guests for over 300 years. The rooms here are tall and spacious in the period style. Furnishings are traditional or, in the newer wing of Wharfedale, more contemporary.

With a 3-to-1 staff-to-guest ratio, people are there to make things happen for you. Do you want a picnic in a particular place, a tennis partner, a chauffeured tour of the National Park? They will make everything happen. If you want to walk a dog and have left yours at home, this luxurious dog-friendly hotel will even loan you one of their two Cocker Spaniels for walks.

The Gore Hotel

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+44 20 7584 6601

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Pass through the gates, in South Kensington, London, and you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled upon a time warp to a Victorian country house. This luxurious and eccentric hotel, next to the Royal Albert Hall, is full of surprises, the most important of which is how the experts have kept it a secret for so long. At the beginning of the 20th century, two sisters, Misses Ada and Fanny Cooke, turned it into an elegant hotel. Today, the public rooms, with their polished wood, etched glass and brass, their huge crystal chandeliers and their dark walls covered with framed pictures, are reminiscent of an earlier time.

This is the style of a country house and then something right in the middle of London. It’s a great option if you’re staying after a concert at the Royal Albert Hall (just around the corner) or planning to do some high-end shopping at Harrods or Harvey Nicks in Knightsbridge. If you’re lucky, you can stay in the room with Judy Garland’s bed. The hotel has a highly regarded restaurant, but the highlight is its cocktail bar, one of the best in London.

See my photo review

Cliveden House

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+44 1628 668561

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Cliveden was built over 300 years ago by the Duke of Buckingham, described as “a famous rake, a schemer, and a genius.” His spirit must have cast a pungent spell on this house, because since then it has been related to power, politics and scandal. More recently, in 1961, the Profumo affair brought down a government with the mischievous events of Russian government ministers, prostitutes and spies.

And all of that took place in the charming and secluded Spring Cottage, which you can reserve for a stay.

In the 1890s, Cliveden was bought by William Waldorf Astor, then the richest man in America. He gave it to his son and daughter-in-law, Waldorf and Nancy Astor, who made it one of the most important political halls of the early 20th century.

Each room and suite is individually and magnificently decorated: silk wall coverings, antique desks, swags and furbelows throughout. Some of them look a bit tired these days, but everything is very grand and the gardens, tended by the National Trust, are magnificent.

• Sex scandals and celebrities in an English country house
• Nancy Astor’s House is a rural hotel
• Read about the Christmas holidays in Cliveden

El Hotel Hallmark Welcombe

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+44 330 028 3422

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This luxury country house, surrounded by an impressive 18 hole golf course, is located one mile from Stratford-upon-Avon in the village of Welcombe. It has a spa with indoor and outdoor pools, thermal rooms, gym and aerobics studio. The hotel’s public areas include an impressive oak-paneled bar, restaurant and lounge. There are also tennis courts and outdoor sports facilities.

A Jacobean Renaissance-style house, built in the late 19th century, Welcombe Manor belonged to George Otto Trevelyan, father of historian George Macauley Trevelyan. It passed through various owners, including Sir Archibald Flower, founder of Flowers Brewery, whose donation funded the original Shakespeare Memorial Theater, now the Royal Shakespeare Theater.

The rooms are huge and beautifully decorated with antiques and period pieces. Most have spectacular views of the Italian-style gardens or the golf course. Try to land in one of the four poster rooms. They are very romantic and have glorious and huge bathrooms.

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Eriska Island

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Housed in a 19th century Scottish baronial mansion, this family-run hotel is quiet, remote and old-fashioned. It’s advertised as a 5-star luxury, but a stay, coupled with a regular clientele of repeat visitors (Judy Dench is said to be one of them), is a bit like joining a country house party hosted by the generous but rather loving older relatives of a wealthy friend. After dinner each night, guests gather at the bar to watch the hosts feed milk and bread to the island’s badger family.

There is a small private golf course, several stretches of beach where you can soak up the Scottish sun. Swimming in the icy water is only for the brave, but the hotel has a large heated indoor pool.

The service is impeccable, but the warmth of the welcome came from the friendliness of the other guests rather than the hotel’s scrupulously correct staff. On its own private island, about 11 miles from the Scottish west coast resort of Oban, the hotel has been owned and operated by the Buchanan-Smith family since the mid-1970s. The wonderfully named Beppo Buchanan-Smith He is a charming, if formal, host.

Discover here the Christmas holidays in Eriska.

Ellenborough Park Hotel

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+44 1242 545454

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If you are taking a spin in Cheltenham during Gold Cup Week, Ellenborough Park is definitely the place to stay. Instead of spending hours in traffic trying to get close to the famous racecourse, followed by a long walk from the parking lot at your festival gala, you can ask the staff at the luxury stack to drive you to the start gate in the Land Rover. . ..through the hotel gardens.

Whether you’re heading to the races, planning a fabulous wedding, or just looking for a break in a luxury country house in the Cotswolds, this hotel is a thoroughbred that, for the most part, delivers on its 5-star promise. And, as for its country house credentials, it has been around since the 1400s and may have been visited by Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s widow. In their current incarnation, the spacious and individually designed rooms have been decorated by Nina Cambell, one of Britain’s most modern proponents of country house style.

However, if you go in the slow season, be prepared to be a bit lonely in the cavernous dining room.

• See my photo review
• Visit their website

Burley Manor

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+44 1425 403522

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Burley Manor, deep in William the Conqueror’s New Forest, bills itself as a restaurant with rooms. That says more about his restaurateur ambitions than what he really is.

We are not saying that the restaurant is not very, very good. It certainly is. Since opening in December 2015, it has garnered congratulations and satisfied customers in abundance. We had a very special dinner there ourselves.

But this place also has all the credentials of a good country hotel: spacious and well-furnished rooms, comfortable lounges where guests can share drinks and coffees before a blazing fire, and a setting that can only be described as magical. Animals: Deer, ponies, cows and pigs can roam freely in the New Forest. So when you enter the driveway of this magnificent home, you are more likely to notice deer grazing in the front garden or New Forest ponies chewing through the hedges before seeing the faux Tudor brick. They have also converted their stable block into some of the best dog rooms I have ever stayed in.

Come for the food, of course, but reserve a room for a country home in the unique New Forest setting.

• Read my review on Burley Manor
• See More Burley Manor Photos

Holbeck Ghyll

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+44 15394 32375

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One of the most famous views of the Lake District is that of the mountains known as Langdale Pikes across Lake Windermere. Almost all the rooms in this romantic rural hotel enjoy this view from their point of view, over the lake. But you shouldn’t need the dazzling view to fall in love with this enchanting place. The welcome warms you as soon as you walk through the door. Flames dance in an inglenook fireplace. The oak paneled entrance hall is arranged with overstuffed chairs. Two more rooms open onto a garden that drops steeply into a wooded garden and the misty lake below.

Lord Lonsdale, founder of the Automobile Association, which bequeathed the Lonsdale Belt to boxing, purchased Holbeck Ghyll for a hunting lodge in 1888 and made it the fad of the Arts and Crafts Movement of the time. There are echoes of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh design in period details throughout the home. Lonsdale’s sense of humor is evident in the clever touches of the décor: the Latin motto in the stained glass above the staircase translates to “If the shoe fits …”

Rooms in the main house are individually decorated with matching antiques and pieces. The beds are luxuriously dressed in Egyption cotton. The private bathrooms are stocked with Penhaligon toiletries and fluffy robes.

And, the lake-view restaurant is award-winning

• Visit their website

Continue to 9 of 10 below.

The old swan mill and the monastery church

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+44 1993 862512

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The Savary family’s last English inn is a Cotswold fantasy come true. They have combined a 600-year-old coaches inn once favored by Winston Churchill, with a historic flax mill to create this charming and comfortable place. Rooms at the Old Swan have high beamed ceilings and pockets of character, while rooms at the Minster Mill are luxurious in a more contemporary way.

The food is gastropub style – hearty pub food elevated to a high level of sophistication and served in a series of cozy rooms with oak beams, stone floors and cozy fire pits in the hearths.

The inn is set in 65 acres of gardens beside the River Windrush and surrounded by the achingly pretty hamlet of Old Minster, just a few minutes from Oxford and less than two hours from London. Minster Lovell Hall, just up the road, is reported to be haunted.

This place is superb – don’t miss it.

• Read my picture review
• Find out more about the haunted Minster Lovell Hall.

Ardanaiseig Hotel

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+44 1866 833333

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The Ardanaiseig hotel sits on a remote hillside above Loch Awe, reached after climbing some 10 miles of winding and winding road from Taynuilt in Argyll. Owned by Bennie Gray, founder of London’s well-known Grays Antique Market, it is romantic, distinctive (to the point of being theatrical) and very welcoming. The Ardanaiseig Hotel has a very good kitchen, a bar stocked with 52 different Scotch whiskeys, and a converted Victorian shed that may make you want to propose to someone staying there. Oh, and did I mention that Wallace the Westie also enjoyed the dog-friendly environment?

• Read my review
• See more photos of Ardanaiseig
• Take a look at the romantic boat house
• Visit their website