We’re calling final orders on nation pub stays that function surly service, soggy Yorkshire puddings and swirly carpets. Fortunately for us, a brand new technology of landlord has arrived to softly nudge these historic public homes into modernity with artisan-crafted interiors, farm-sourced fare and spoiling spas in sheds. Right here we’ve gathered eight of our favorite boutique pubs with rooms, every excellent for basking in England’s bucolic magnificence (with native ale in hand).
THE BECKFORD ARMS
Wiltshire
It’s been a boozer since 1740, so ivy-covered idyll the Beckford Arms has had 242 years to excellent the artwork of wining, eating and unwinding. And we are saying they’ve received it nailed – beamed ceilings, bay home windows and open fires assist to create the cosiest of environment downstairs.
However don’t simply take our phrase for it: the surest signal of a cracking nation pub is that it’s full of locals, and, positive sufficient, the Beckford bustles all weekend lengthy. The meals right here is known (we don’t use the phrase evenly) and on a Sunday lunch time, seemingly the complete county congregates right here for a roast. All the pieces on the menu is seasonal and straight-forward with strictly no gastro gimmicks, and all the time served with a real smile from an unfeasibly healthy-looking native lad or lass.
Upstairs, the eight bedrooms are stylishly furnished with Welsh wool blankets, sisal rugs and just-picked wild flowers in bud vases. You’ll be significantly charmed by breakfast, which comes on a correct tea tray with a silver teapot besides. And talking of shoes, the pub sits on the ten,000-acre Fonthill Property, so that they’ll come in useful for roaming the rolling parkland, woodland and formal gardens.
DOUBLE RED DUKE
Oxfordshire
This honey-hued Cotswolds (in spirit, if not by the letter of the geographical regulation) stone pub takes its title from a folkloric determine, which is apt as a result of a keep right here does really feel a bit like dwelling in a fairy story.
Maybe it’s as a result of a few of Britain’s most interesting artisans had a hand within the Arts and Crafts-inspired interiors – there are Fermoie materials, bespoke Little Greene paint on the partitions and hand-crafted tiles on the ground.
Possibly it’s the shepherd’s hut within the grounds the place you may skip off for spa remedies utilizing 100 Acres aromatherapy merchandise. And presumably it’s due to the wolfish urge for food you’ll have to work as much as deal with the pub menu – the Double Red Duke‘s cooks are each alumni of meat temples Hawksmoor and PittCue, so count on hearty steaks cooked over an open grill, throwback staples like shrimp cocktail, and comforting bar snacks together with cheese toasties and bacon rib croquettes.
All of it combines for a pleasingly soporific impact – fortunately the cosy’s overstuffed sofas, roaring hearth and stash of board video games have been made for lazy afternoons.
THE PHEASANT INN
Berkshire
The Pheasant Inn might share its title with a sport chicken, however the speak is usually of thoroughbreds inside this sporty pub within the North Wessex Downs, often known as ‘the Valley of the Racehorse’ due to the sheer variety of coaching grounds in cantering distance.
This implies you’re greater than more likely to rub fetlocks on the bar with Britain’s foremost house owners, trainers and maybe even jockeys, significantly after race days at Newbury. But when speak of gallops and geldings leaves you chilly, don’t fear – in addition to horses, the encompassing countryside can also be peppered with quaint villages, historic market cities and antiques havens (make Hungerford Arcade your first cease).
We’ll have a flutter that you just received’t wish to enterprise too removed from the locally-sourced menu that’s price loosening your jodhpurs for, cosy bedrooms full with duck-down duvets, bathtub tubs and Bamford bathtub merchandise, or Bloody Mary bar that will get wheeled out at brunch time.
LORD POULETT ARMS
Somerset
Firstly, a Lord Poulett Arms tip: it’s not pronounced just like the French phrase for rooster, it’s ‘paulett’. The title comes from the Hon Earl Paulett whose ancestral seat is simply down the street from the pub’s sleepy, south Somerset village of Hinton Saint George.
Actually, although, who wants a stately house if you’ve received a thatched English inn with pétanque within the backyard, craft beers from the close by Butcombe Brewery and superb strolling paths main straight from the entrance door?
The six characterful bedrooms above the inn have cozy super-king-size beds the place you may sleep off the coma-inducing results of cider battered fish and chips, triple chocolate skillet cookies and pints of Poulett cider.
THE BRADLEY HARE
Wiltshire
The Bradley Hare reposes in an Space of Excellent Pure Magnificence on the Duke of Somerset’s property (although it’s truly simply over the border in Dorset).
Though we’d be remiss to not handle the excellent magnificence inside – interiors aficionados, beware, you’ll be itching to redecorate after laying eyes on the mushy gray wool curtains, 18th-century antiques, heritage wallpapers and covetable cushions that adorn the historic bones of this not-so-average village pub.
The person accountable is James Thurstan Waterworth, a former design director at Soho Home, whose inimitable eye has ensured that each bed room (seven in the primary pub and 5 within the neighbouring coach home) oozes softly-spoken sophistication. Regardless of all this urbanity, the Bradley Hare’s ft are nonetheless firmly planted within the duchy’s soil – there are native Somerset ciders on faucet, canines and little Smiths are very welcome and there’s a stash of wellies for walks across the West Wiltshire Downs.
THE OLD BELL HOTEL
Wiltshire
The Old Bell Hotel claims to be England’s oldest, however you’d be unsuitable to image a dusty previous watering gap with a creaky bar and some modestly organized rooms. Actually, other than its retiring wisteria-clad façade and dramatic hooded fire (which dates all the best way again to 1220) there’s nothing clearly previous right here in any respect.
Slightly, this maximalist dame is devoted to a different character of English life – the flamboyant and frill-loving eccentric. Think about Grayson Perry as a landlady and also you’ll have a tough approximation of the Outdated Bell’s moodboard; pattern-clashing wallpapers, William Morris prints, pop colors, subway tiles and, in fact, faux-taxidermy giraffe heads.
Spiritual relics and stained-glass home windows reference the wealthy historical past of the lodge’s equally magnificent neighbour, Malmesbury Abbey, with 8,000 gold stars hand-painted on the restaurant’s ceiling. And the meals is simply as heavenly.
However whereas there’s nothing conventional about this unorthodox alehouse, it nonetheless has one factor in frequent together with your basic nation pub. Specifically, the cosy, convivial ambiance the place pub quizzes and stay music, crackling fires and the dulcet chatter of well-dressed locals could have you feeling proper at house.
THE QUEEN’S ARMS
Somerset
Flanked by Jurassic scarps and undulating Somerset hills, the traditional settlement of Corton Denham isn’t a spot you’ll discover in guidebooks. Dwelling to only 189 individuals, this blushingly bucolic village consists of butchers, bakers and craft cider makers who busy themselves with modest however noble affairs; parish council conferences, month-to-month guide golf equipment, and even a gardening society.
However now, because of an brisk household who purchased the Queen’s Arms again in 2020, you’re simply as more likely to discover fashionable out-of-towners flocking right here for a tipple or two, and staying lengthy after final orders in one in every of eight vibrant bedrooms.
Hailing from a formidable foodie background (Ballymaloe cookery college and a prolonged stint at Leith’s in London, that’s), the brand new house owners have mixed their gastro credentials, eager eye for interiors and a love of landscaping to create a West Nation crowd pleaser with one thing to swimsuit each season..
Meaning a ginkgos-flanked backyard with sufficient rose bushes to decorate a Tudor marriage ceremony, loads of cosy nooks to twist up in when the climate received’t play ball, a farm-to-fork menu of delicate dishes and elevated pub classics, and an intensive stock of Somerset ales and Babylonstoren wines in addition to.
WILD THYME AND HONEY
Cotswolds
In case your thought of a wild time is consuming your body weight in ox-cheek bourguignon and locally-made cheeses, spending high quality one-on-one time with nature, or sinking your self right into a deep, sud-strong bathtub tub, Wild Thyme and Honey may be for you.
Set by a babbling brook in a good-looking Gloucestershire hamlet, this spruced-up sixteenth century inn and its neighbouring pub is all about nation life, taking its title from the honey-hued Cotswold stone of native homes and the aromatic purple herbs that develop in between them.
Be part of the locals propping up the bar which has been whetting punters’ whistles for hundreds of years, not that you just’d comprehend it, with its authentic-but-aspirational mix of wooden, wicker and wool; seize a negroni and hit the courtyard for scenic sipping in England’s inexperienced lung, or tuck right into a Herculean roast from one of many alfresco glass eating domes of the type you’d see alongside the South Financial institution.
And although rooms right here might have the haute-rustic really feel of an elegant metropolis loft, the relentless hum of metropolis life is notably absent so you may finish every day on an all-thyme excessive.
Proceed your crawl round the remainder of our boutique pubs with rooms
Up to date in September 2023 with extra textual content by Stephanie Gavan
