THE PIG AT BRIDGE PLACE, CANTERBURY
The last time I visited the grand red-bricked manor house that is now the latest addition to The Pig family, I was, bizarrely, a 16-year-old and at the leavers’ ball for my all-girls Kent grammar school. In its former incarnation, it was a rather debauched rock’n’ roll venue, but when Robin and Judy Hutson decided to inject some piggy personality into it, they tore down the more salubrious bits (though posters for gigs from Led Zeppelin and the Kinks still adorn the loos). In their place, they built a coach house and a beautiful, light-filled restaurant decked out with stained-glass windows from Quo Vadis and lamps from old pie and mash shops.
Overnight visitors have myriad choices of where to rest their heads – from the eight bedrooms in the main house and the more modern coach-house rooms to rustic Hop Pickers’ huts and family lodges. We stay in the latter, and it feels like a home from home – if you live in a gorgeous rural cottage with stable doors, a log burner, colossal beds and a roll-top bath, all elegantly decorated in hues of sage and cream, with fabrics by local artisans.
This time around, my experience is far more charming (no cider in plastic cups!), but as a Pig devotee, I know this is their USP. Our weekend stay is a marvellous mélange of eating (the famous 25-mile menu is in full effect here, with Folkstone crab salad, Rye-landed skate wing and Wingham tomato salad all on offer; my highlight was the roast pork, with the best crackling I have ever tasted); pizza-making (our girls are whisked off to make their own in the garden oven); drinking (gin and tonics, tucked away in one of a number of ‘snugs’ in the main house); and general bonhomie.
The hotel’s director, Guy, is a delight, amusing our kids with impromptu activities, from drawing contests to wading in the stream in wellies, and we’re made to feel part of the family. I could end this with any number of porcine puns, but really all I need to say is that a Pig is my happy place – and I plan to return to this one again and again. SARAH TOMCZAK