Britain's cosiest hotels for autumn
What do we look for in an autumn break in Britain? Warmth and cosiness, log fires, comfortable beds and beautiful views, certainly. And menus based on local, seasonal produce including mushrooms and game, as well as long, lazy afternoon teas, with papers and books and maybe a board game by the fire. And if we can find a hotel close to a sight – a garden, park, arboretum or forest, famed for its glorious autumn colours, so much the better. The following hotels answer all these requirements and more.
Pennyhill Park
Bagshot, Surrey, England
9Telegraph expert rating
No wonder autumn is a focus here: the suburban hotel is unexpectedly surrounded by beautiful hilly wooded parkland, it has one of the cosiest two Michelin-starred restaurants in the country (Michael Wignall at Gidleigh Park) and its huge spa is a haven of tranquility and second to none. Here you'll find eight indoor and outdoor pools, one of which has soothing underwater music. The heated ceramic relaxation beds, shaped to the body’s contours, are almost impossible to leave. Read expert review From £306 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
The Pig
Brockenhurst, New Forest, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The New Forest is one of Britain’s prime places for edible fungi and foraging expeditions. Wild mushrooms are on the menu at the original Pig hotel, a pretty Georgian shooting lodge with a cosy, shabby-chic appeal and abundant kitchen garden, even in autumn. Nearby are Bolderwood and Rhinefield Ornamental drives and Exbury Gardens, all spectacular sights. The Pig speaks of The Good Life; it can get too busy at times, but its formula of locally sourced food in a sophisticated yet laid-back country setting has proved a winning one. Read expert review From £160 per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
• The best hotels in the New Forest
Ockenden Manor Hotel & Spa
Cuckfield, West Sussex, England
8Telegraph expert rating
A hotel that has it all for an autumn break: the tranquil and charming Elizabethan manor offers Michelin-starred cooking in its restaurant, an elegant sitting room warmed by a roaring log fire, a cosy wood-panelled bar and – for all-important pampering as winter sets in – a state of the art spa in a contrastingly modern adjacent building. And to admire the burnished hues of autumn, there is nowhere more spectacular than nearby Sheffield Park. Read expert review From £144 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Barnsdale Lodge
Oakham, England
8Telegraph expert rating
On the north shore of Rutland Water, part of the Exton Park estate of the Earls of Gainsborough, this former farmhouse has a pretty courtyard, attractive bedrooms and a warm and welcoming ground floor. The long cosy flagstone hallway features an original cast iron stove and there’s a picture-filled, warm red sitting room, sunny conservatory dining room and another dining room that has a clubby feel fit for the hotel’s aristocratic owner. Read expert review From £66 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Boconnoc House & Estate
Lostwithiel, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Milder temperatures than in the rest of the country, and with plenty of the county’s famous gardens still open make Cornwall a great place for an autumn break. Few vistas – of deer park, woodland and lake – are as lovely as those surrounding this stunning manor. Inside, tuck up with hot chocolate and blankets for a movie night in the library or read by a crackling log fire. Read expert review From £240 per night
The Inn at Whitewell
Lancashire, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The perfect retreat for an autumn weekend. Book one of the seven bedrooms with its own peat fire and curl up, warm as toast, to admire the glorious Forest of Bowland view. The beds are exquisitely comfortable. For longer stays, The Piggeries is a restored three-bedroom holiday cottage in the grounds. Bar meals are served in the spacious sitting rooms, a red velvet sofa here, wall of hand-printed Coles paper there, silver candlesticks on polished wood tables. Read expert review From £120 per night
• The best hotels in Lancashire
Salcombe Harbour Hotel & Spa
Salcombe, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
With a breezy seaside style, balconies overlooking the water, the excellent Jetty restaurant (specialising in the freshest of fish) and easy access to bracing coastal walks, this south Devon hotel has great appeal in autumn. Make time for a visit to The Garden House at Buckland Monachorum, a beautiful 10-acre valley garden where Devon’s most colourful autumn foliage is on display in the Acer Glade. Read expert review From £230 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Hotel Endsleigh
Tavistock, Devon, England
9Telegraph expert rating
In an incomparable setting in its own secret valley, this Grade-I listed Regency shooting lodge, now a stylish hotel owned by Olga Polizzi, is at its best in autumn, when the hanging woods beyond the River Tamar are clothed in red and gold and the many fine trees in the hotel’s beautiful gardens, designed by Humphry Repton, have also taken on their autumn colours. Purposefully low-tech, the rooms don’t have televisions, Wi-Fi or mini bars, and only a couple have proper showers. Read expert review From £216 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Bowood Hotel, Spa & Golf Resort
Wiltshire, England
7Telegraph expert rating
Get a sneak preview of one of 'Capability' Brown's finest landscapes by staying at Bowood Hotel and enjoying his arboretum, which will be blazing with colour. As the leaves fall, Brown’s landscape design becomes ever more clear. Then there’s golf on the Bowood course, and treatments in the hotel’s spa, not to mention books to browse in its stylish library, designed by Lady Lansdowne. Read expert review From £120 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Beckford Arms
Fonthill Gifford, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Fifteen minutes’ drive from this stylish, animated and enveloping inn is Stourhead, so famous for the autumn colours in its 18th-century landscape garden that reports on its progress are broadcast in season on Radio 4’s Today programme. Not only that, but the magical Fonthill estate is on the doorstep. Bedrooms are charming, the food seasonal, and you can curl up in the inn’s sitting room with log fire, sofas and tables piled with books. Read expert review From £95 per night Check availability Rates provided by Mr & Mrs Smith
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The Portobello Hotel
Notting Hill, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
If you don’t want to go grand in London, why not go intimate? There’s no restaurant at the Portobello, but you can nestle in the pretty, colourful sitting room with a cup of tea (the floral cups are finds from Portobello Market) a drink from the honesty bar or a light supper. The hotel still encapsulates its bohemian spirit from the days when film and rock stars made it their base of choice, but is nowadays a highly characterful but hugely comfortable place to stay, especially in the winter months. Read expert review From £200 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
• The best hotels in Notting Hill
Spot in the Woods
Hampshire, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Conveniently close to Southampton, but also the New Forest, this exceptional restaurant with pleasant, airy bedrooms is a great base for witnessing the annual autumn Pannage (until mid-November), a beautiful and rare sight, when domestic pigs are turned out on to the forest floor to graze on acorns and beechmast. A warm welcome and seasonal dishes, including pork, await you back at Terravina, plus superb wines courtesy of owner and world-class sommelier Gerard Basset. Read expert review From £85 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
• The best hotels in Southampton
George and Dragon
Lake District, Cumbria, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Dynamic young couple, Charles and Juno Lowther, have lovingly restored this Georgian village inn, transforming it into a captivating place to stay, bursting with character and vitality. Downstairs, you’ll find wood-burning stoves, sofas, banquettes, paintings and photographs, and the contemporary yet cosy style carries on upstairs to 11 individually decorated bedrooms. The slate-floored, blue panelled restaurant showcases produce from the Lowther Estate, prepared with flair, but no fuss. The Estate also provides fishing and stalking. Read expert review From £95 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
The Milk House
Sissinghurst, Kent, England
8Telegraph expert rating
In an incomparable setting in its own secret valley, this Grade-I listed Regency shooting lodge, now a stylish hotel owned by Olga Polizzi, is at its best in autumn, when the hanging woods beyond the River Tamar are clothed in red and gold and the many fine trees in the hotel’s beautiful gardens, designed by Humphry Repton, have also taken on their autumn colours. Purposefully low-tech, the rooms don’t have televisions, Wi-Fi or mini bars, and only a couple have proper showers. Read expert review From £95 per night
The Dorchester
Hyde Park, London, England
7Telegraph expert rating
Even if you don’t live far from the capital – even, indeed, if you live in the capital – there’s nothing more spoiling that a night or two in a luxury London hotel. Where better in autumn than The Dorchester, overlooking Hyde Park? Of The Dorchester’s several stand-out restaurants, choose at this time of the year The Grill, established in 1931 and serving the finest grilled dishes, unmissable blue lobster chowder and an extensive choice of sweet soufflés. Read expert review From £725 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
• The best family-friendly hotels in England
Number Sixteen
Kensington, London, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Stroll over the road from Number Sixteen to the V&A to catch an exhibition. After a day of walking round the museum, put your feet up in the gorgeous Drawing Room, Library or Orangery for a restorative and fulsome afternoon tea, followed perhaps by a stroll around the hotel’s newly re-designed, tree-lined private garden. Read expert review From £228 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
• The best hotels in Kensington
The Feathered Nest Country Inn
Oxfordshire, Cotswolds, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The very name of this glossy converted pub is enough to make you want to head there at the first sign of autumn chill. The Feathered Nest at Nether Weston has four individually decorated bedrooms, with antiques and comfy beds, plus a good library of DVDs and board games for whiling away those rainy days. The delicious seasonal cooking of head chef Kuba Winkowski is served in an array of dining areas, including the bar where the stools are fashioned from leather saddles. Read expert review From £140 per night
• The best hotels in the Cotswolds
Gliffaes Country House Hotel
Brecon Beacons, Wales
9Telegraph expert rating
Inspired by his Grand Tour travels, an extravagant Reverend West decided to blow his family’s fortune on building Gliffaes in Italianate style in 1883, with a campanile and a wide stone terrace overlooking hedge-chequered hills. Now run by Susie and James Suter, who are winging the hotel into its fourth generation, it is an impeccable example of old-fashioned class. Stucco-embellished ceilings, Delft tile-rimmed fireplaces, polished barley-twist wood, Lewis & Wood fabrics and antique chairs reupholstered in Welsh tweed blend in with contemporary works of Welsh art. Read expert review From £164 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Ynyshir Restaurant and Rooms
Powys, Wales
9Telegraph expert rating
Queen Victoria herself is reputed to have planted the Persian Ironwood (Parrotia), famed for its autumn colour, that graces the wonderful gardens which she loved so much when she owned Ynyshir Hall as a private retreat. The handsome white house now houses another secret: the cooking of Gareth Ward and his tight-knit team, no better discovered than in autumn with its abundance of personally foraged local ingredients. Read expert review From £190 per night
Killiecrankie Hotel
Perthshire, Perth and Kinross, Scotland
9Telegraph expert rating
Arrive at this whitewashed 1840s house in a glorious garden to a slap-up complimentary tea and good old-fashioned hospitality from welcoming owner Henrietta Fergusson and her tartan-trewed team. Inside, it is homely, with 10 traditional yet stylish bedrooms, decorated in warm colours and with fresh flowers. In the dining room, there’s a four-course table d’hôte dinner from much lauded chef, Mark Easton, whilst lighter dishes are served in the bar conservatory. Come here to unwind. Read expert review From £220 per night
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The Airds Hotel & Restaurant
Port Appin, Scotland
8Telegraph expert rating
After a thrilling drive through Glencoe, whose late autumn colours lend the landscape a beauty even greater than that of summer’s cloak of purple heather, you arrive at Loch Linnhe, where Castle Stalker stands enigmatically on its tiny islet. Drive futher still and you reach little Port Appin and this enveloping small hotel, where peace, tranquility, locally sourced dinners, comforting teas by roaring fires and warm beds are guaranteed. Read expert review From £340 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
Bodysgallen Hall and Spa
Llandudno, Wales
8Telegraph expert rating
Why not time your stay at this Historic House Hotel of the National Trust? It has a spa and large indoor pool in its former farmhouse, with a tour, lead by the head gardener, of its exceptional gardens. The sweeping views from the medieval look-out tower are sensational and the house has great character, with 15 antique-filled bedrooms and a formal dining room in the main hall. Read expert review From £230 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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Little Barwick House
Somerset, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Roe deer, sweetbreads and wild mushroom risotto are all on the menu at this charming, unpretentious family-run restaurant with rooms with superb food, cosy bedrooms and a pretty garden. Nearby is Mapperton House and (unusual, three-tiered) Gardens, in the spotlight since its appearance in the Far from the Madding Crowd film. Also wonderful in autumn is Sculpture by the Lakes, where Simon Gudgeon’s sculptures and his wife’s landscapes combine to stunning natural effect. Read expert review From £120 per night
The Ram Inn
South Downs, East Sussex, England
8Telegraph expert rating
November 5th sees Britain’s largest Guy Fawkes celebrations in nearby Lewes, but delightful Firle has its own historic Bonfire Society too, with huge bonfire, fireworks, parade and marching band. The focus for all the fun is this characterful village pub, with snuggly bedrooms in the rafters, open fires, food that includes game from Firle Estate, local ales and often the vicar, sporting his famous cowboy hat, propping up the bar with other village residents. Read expert review From £90 per night
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