Cosy up in a cottage with country house attached... SPRING COTTAGE, CLIVEDEN
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
The weight of history is tangible at Cliveden, from its 17th-century arcade – all that remains of the original house built in 1666 for the 2nd Duke of Buckingham – to the grand hall where John Singer Sargent’s charming portrait of a vivacious Nancy Astor hangs on the wall. It was during the stewardship of Nancy, Lady Astor that Cliveden enjoyed its golden age. It was frequented by royalty and writers, artists and actors. Upon being told it was going to become a hotel, Harold Macmillan (often a guest) remarked: “My dear boy, it always has been.”
In 1849, Cliveden had its second catastrophic fire resulting in the Duke of Sutherland, its owner, commissioning architect Charles Barry (who designed the Houses of Parliament) to rebuild it. The Italianate villa that remains today is considered one of Barry’s masterpieces. In 1857, the Duke of Sutherland turned his attention to timber-framed Spring Cottage, which lay within the estate on the banks of the Thames. Originally a Gothic-style summerhouse, it was enlarged into a cottage, keeping the original, octagonal vaulted plaster ceiling and adding a Gothic-style loggia and turret. The spring nearby was considered to have rejuvenating powers, and it was a popular place with the Duchess of Sutherland, who often received Queen Victoria there, the monarch arriving by royal barge.
While Cliveden had already had its fair share of scandals, Spring Cottage’s turn came in 1961 when society osteopath Stephen Ward rented the cottage from the Astors. It was on one of the hottest weekends of the year around the Astors’ outdoor swimming pool (which still exists today), that Ward’s guest Christine Keeler first met John Profumo who was staying at Cliveden. The rest, as they say, is history.
Today, Spring Cottage has been beautifully restored, offering a cosier, less formal setting than Cliveden, yet with the use of all its facilities from the elegant dining room to the spa and that swimming pool.
There is a log fire in the sitting room, two double bedrooms and a third with sofa beds for children. There is a kitchen with an Aga and a wooden dining table. Views are on to the flowerfilled garden and the flowing River Thames.
Spring Cottage (sleeping 6) costs from £2,055 a night, B&B. Reopens July 4. clivedenhouse.co.uk
Some of our smartest hotels are sprucing up their smaller outhouses for the benefit of guests who want a mixture of grandeur and privacy
CHURCH LODGE, HECKFIELD PLACE HAMPSHIRE
An 18th-century Georgian house which sits in the middle of a 400-acre estate in the Hampshire countryside, Heckfield Place is a project which is far more than the hotel at the centre of it, echoing the importance of the Manor House in days of old. The organic Home Farm, run on biodynamic principles, provides much of what the kitchen, under culinary director Skye Gyngell, delivers to the table; from roast farm vegetables with warm yogurt and fermented red chilli to slow-cooked lamb with viola artichokes, peas and preserved lemon dressing. Monthly markets selling produce are open to the locals, as is the sleek, underground, screening room complete with Ferrari leather-clad chairs. It is the detail here that astonishes, from the beautiful interiors by Ben Thompson who manages to include the outside in extraordinary ways such as bed heads made of straw from the farm, to the uniforms by Egg and the own brand Wildsmith lotions and potions. Named after arborist William Wildsmith who created the gardens here in the 19th century, the fragrance draws on the plants and botanicals in the grounds of Heckfield Place from the floral notes of linden blossom to Roman chamomile and grounding cedarwood. Fresh flowers from the garden fill the house just as art from the private collection of owner Gerald Chan, a renowned scientist and philanthropist, cover the walls; think Elsbeth Juda photographs and paintings by Paul Rafferty and Gary Bunt.
The original black-and-white timbered gatehouse, now called Church Lodge, was renovated and opened in September last year with the same attention to detail as Heckfield Place. Paintings by Bunt, their story penned and hidden in the frame, hang on the Farrow & Ball painted walls. Two cosy bedrooms, with books on the shelves and drawers trimmed with leather handles, come with an elegant, wood-panelled bathroom with a slipper bathtub. Downstairs, the kitchen comes with a butler’s sink and wicker baskets for the vegetables, and the adjoining sitting room looks on to the garden through its bay windows. It is an ideal space for families who want privacy.
Church Lodge (sleeping 4) costs from £1,400 a night, B&B. Reopens July 4. heckfieldplace.com
THE HAYLOFT & WOOLSACK, THE NEWT BRUTON, SOMERSET
Just as Heckfield Place fulfils a greater
role in the community than your normal country house hotel, so too does The Newt, which opened last year to great acclaim. Owners Koos Bekker and Karen Roos, who already had Babylonstoren in their native South Africa under their belt, changed their plans to make 17th century Hadspen House their private home, feeling it was simply too good not to share. What they have gone on to create is a working country estate, encompassing farmland, orchards, gardens – both vegetable and formal – a farm shop, a Cyder Press and Cellar using Somerset apples and a History of Gardening Museum, all open to the public.
They have breathed new life into the elegant limestone house, creating 13 bedrooms in the main house and 10 in was no pre-cooked style. The Hayloft and Woolsack have been converted from an 18th century farm building which was originally used to store hay and wool, the latter the source of Somerset’s wealth until American cotton destroyed the market. There is a woodburning stove in the sitting room of the Hayloft, which has a king-size bed in the mezzanine above, a bathroom off the sitting room and a door from there through to the Woolsack with twin beds and its own shower room.
The Hayloft and the Woolsack (sleeping 4) are available from £450 per night including breakfast, in-room larder, high tea and garden tour. Reopens July 15. thenewtinsomerset.com farm buildings, the interiors of which, designed by Karen herself, she found a particular joy to do.
“The challenge,” she said, “was to stay on the good side of rustic. Guests need comfort, cleanliness, warmth and good light but all in the setting of a real old farm. Undoubtedly, our farm buildings at The Newt have a certain playfulness about them. They’d never been inhabited by humans before – rather by cows, horses, coaches and bales of wool.” With no human history, there
THE COACH HOUSE, BEAVERBROOK SURREY
While there are numerous reports of Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill visiting Cliveden, it seems they also had time to enjoy the Roaring Twenties at the home of politician and press baron Lord Beaverbrook at his Victorian mansion in the rolling Surrey hills. Opulent throughout, it included Italianate gardens and England’s first home cinema, elegantly wood-panelled. Eighteen suites in the main house are named after the good and great who stayed there frequently, from Rudyard Kipling, who wrote a poem for Beaverbrook, now framed in the lobby, to Churchill, whose suite contains the same bath from which he used to dictate to his secretary.
A short stroll away from the main house, the original Victorian coach house was converted and launched at the end of 2019, housing six, petfriendly, suites on two floors, all interconnecting and most large enough to sleep two adults and two children, making a base for a party of 21. Designed by Susie Atkinson, interiors are countryside chic with whimsical colours and rustic touches and some bathrooms are resplendent with copper bathtubs.
The Coach House (sleeping 21) costs from £4,350 per night, B&B. Reopens July 4. beaverbrook.co.uk
KEEPER’S COTTAGE, LUCKNAM PARK WILTSHIRE
The two cottages set within the grounds at Lucknam Park have proved so popular that there are currently two more in
the pipeline. Launched last year is Squire’s Cottage, a new four bedroom property within easy reach of the impressive Espa Spa.
But it is Keeper’s Cottage which opened in 2018, at the end of the drive, which brims with the cosiness that a country cottage should do. Stone-built with a pretty, flower-filled garden and a Cotswold stone well, it has three double or twin bedrooms, sleeping six, and a sitting room with sloping ceilings and wood floors topped with rugs.
It has a dining room and a fitted wood kitchen with butler’s sink; and comes with a welcome hamper containing champagne and breakfast staples. For dinner, those who do not want to cook their own are strongly advised to book a table at Michelin-starred Restaurant Hywel Jones for dishes such as Isle of Gigha halibut with melted leeks, Jerusalem artichokes, hazelnut and lemon thyme jus gras.
Pet-friendly Keeper’s Cottage (sleeping 6) starts from £1,150 per night. Minimum stay two nights. Reopens July 13. lucknampark.co.uk
OLD THATCH COTTAGE, THE PIG AT COMBE DEVON
This mellow-stoned Elizabethan manor house set in the Otter Valley and just a few miles from the sea offers the easy charm that the group is famous for along with its potting shed spa treatment rooms and emphasis on locally sourced food. Set within the walled gardens is the Old Thatch Cottage, with original stone flagged floor, wood burning stove and two bedrooms. One has a four poster bed and roll top bath; the other, double or twin, is also furnished with an en-suite shower.
The Old Thatch Cottage costs from £425 a night (sleeping 4), B&B. Reopens July 4. thepighotel.com/at-combe
APPLE COTTAGE, BOATH HOUSE NAIRN, SCOTLAND
Situated under the big skies of the Scottish
Highlands, Regency Boath House has long attracted visitors to its fine restaurant and impressive walled garden.
Set within those walls, an old stone bothy dating back to 1650, and originally used for storing apples, was a few years ago converted into pretty Apple Cottage, its walls clad with ceanothus. Providing a self-catering option for a couple who want a home rather than a hotel, it offers a cosy sitting room with wood burning stove, a double bedroom, shower room and a kitchen with views out into the garden.
The Apple Cottage costs from £290 (two adults) per night. Reopens July 10. boath-house.com
THE GARDENER’S COTTAGE, BALLYFIN COUNTY LAOIS, IRELAND
Ballyfin has long been admired as one of the most distinguished late Georgian houses in Ireland, and since its launch in 2011 one of the country’s most impressive hotels with lavish period interiors.
Last year they opened The Gardener’s Cottage, which had been just that, set in a corner of the walled garden with views over the parkland and lake on one side and the vegetable garden and flower borders on the other.
Interiors come courtesy of London-based designer, Colin Orchard, who has created an elegant, uplifting space with antiques and colourful fabrics. The sitting room has an open fireplace at either end. Upstairs, there are two bathrooms and a charming bedroom with a balcony and stairs to a hot tub on the private terrace.
The Gardener’s Cottage costs from €2,000 (£1,800) per night (sleeping 2), full board. Reopens July 23. ballyfin.com