FIONA DUNCAN HOTEL HIT SQUAD
They’ve revolutionised rural hotels up and down the country, but there is still nowhere quite like The Pigs
oday’s column isn’t about a single hotel but a whole litter of them. “Which is your favourite Pig?” I am often asked. Since I love them all, I usually dodge the question by citing the latest one to have opened or the first, The Pig at Brockenhurst, because that is where the story started and it is on my doorstep.
The truth is, I would happily spend time in any Pig for the simple reason that they make me feel really good when I am there, but the bill – while by no means insignificant – is affordable, especially compared with luxury country house hotels. They are beyond my reach, but their appeal, in my opinion, is no greater.
It’s a surprise to me that I have become such a fan. Never, in 35 years of writing about hotels, did I think I would find myself championing a chain/group/ formula – call it what you will. My career as a hotel critic started with Charming Small Hotels – little independent, owner-run places full of character – and in them my heart still lies. But never, in those 35 years, have I seen a chain/group/formula that contrives to feel both independent and enormously characterful – and, for all their shared features, the opposite of formulaic.
As the seventh Pig – at Harlyn Bay in north Cornwall – opens its ancient oak-studded doors, this is perhaps the moment to examine why – and why they have so profoundly influenced rural British hotelkeeping.
Here are a few reasons, in no particular order. Up and down the country I have met young hoteliers who tell me they want to Piggify their places. No self-respecting new hotel now opens without an all-singing, all-dancing kitchen garden and a “locally sourced” ethos.
Hoteliers without the means or desire for an expensive spa know, thanks to the Pigs, that their guests can have just as enjoyable a time in a shepherd’s hut. They know that breakfast is as important as dinner. They know that character and charm are paramount. And they know that putting every effort into creating a family of staff is the most important thing of all.
And yet, despite their best efforts, there is still nowhere else like the Pigs, either here in the UK or abroad.
I used to think that the main reason for the Pigs’ allure was the fact that their rustic, vintage, boho chic interiors are the creation of just two dedicated people: owner Robin Hutson and his wife Judy, who have never brought in outside designers, but created their look, down to the last obsessive detail, scouring the country for vintage finds and specialist fabric, furniture and lighting designers. Their attention to detail is extraordinary, underpinned by authenticity, integrity and a refusal to cut corners. That commitment, backed up by their loyal core staff, is why these hotels are so joyous to stay in.
But there is another reason too: the buildings that have become those seven Pigs, with an eighth – The Pig in the Downs – due to open in Sussex this time next year. No Pig materialises unless just the right place becomes available and dozens are discarded in the process. Each one is different, each one quirky and atmospheric, from
deeply romantic Combe House in Devon to comical folly The Pig on the Beach in Dorset.
Thanks to the individual characters of these places, Judy Hutson has no trouble in dreaming up imaginary owners for each one on which to base her interiors: an eccentric lady artist at The Pig on the Beach; a mélange of Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull at The Pig at Bridge Place, once a venue for 1960s rock bands; or the stillness of actor Mark Rylance in Wolf Hall at Harlyn Bay with its slate walls and thick oak doors.
I have known the Hutsons since they created their first Hotel du Vin in Winchester, later selling the group in 2004. Robin later joined forces with industrialist Jim Ratcliffe to oversee the transformation of a hotel owned by Ratcliffe into Lime Wood, and then turned his attention to another of Ratcliffe’s properties, Whitley Ridge, with a dilapidated, unused walled kitchen garden.
I can remember Robin telling me at the time about his lightbulb moment, when he realised that the key, the raison d’être, was that very kitchen garden. That would be the story: home-grown and local produce, with the kitchen garden at the heart of the hotel. In another stroke of genius, he came up with the highly unusual, nicely disruptive, utterly memorable name: The Pig.
Nowadays, Robin is not only in charge of Lime Wood and the Pigs, but is a vocal champion of the hugely threatened hospitality industry. All hotels are expressions of their owners; no hotel is perfect but the Pigs’ owners are creative, down to earth and very kind, and so are the Pigs.