Hip Home Counties: 20 chic places to stay for some Green Belt glamour
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To stay at Ashdown Park is to enter a quiet, slightly old fashioned hotel with long corridors, unremarkable décor, comfy faded sofas but very attentive staff. It also has a deconsecrated church which is used for functions and weddings. The well-stocked cocktail bar with a stained glass window of the Virgin Mary above it is an arresting. The current hotel in Ashdown Park can be traced back to the early in the nineteenth century when permission was given for a substantial house to be built within the forest.
Local exploring- Perfect for exploring the rich history of Frankfurt, including the former Jewish Quarter and the historic Old Town. Hideaway- An enchanting half timbered hotel, with flower filled gardens, welcoming rooms and a cosy bar. Great walks- Make the most of the beautiful walking all along the closeby River Rhine. City, town, county, region, post code, hotel name, landmark, airport, train station, stadium... The counties are not precisely defined but Buckinghamshire and Surrey are usually included in definitions and Berkshire, Essex, Hertfordshire and Kent are also often included.
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This multi-award winning hotel offers sumptuous rooms all individually designed after famous hotels around the world, many with private hot tub gardens. There’s the soaring space you expect from a good barn conversion plus designery sliding glass doors – but also plenty of practicality. All three barns are wheelchair accessible, the sofas are comfortable and the kitchens well-equipped. In non-Covid times, they can either be rented as a whole or in separately; the Granary sleeps six, the Wagon House and Vineyard both sleep four. Surrounded by a working vineyard and 600 acres of farmland in the village of Dane End near Stevenage.
He also hung a sign “Patronised by King Edward VII and the Duke of Connaught” (the king’s younger brother) outside the Spread Eagle. Today the King Edward Room is a resident’s lounge with comfortable sofas, a working fireplace and lots of historic newspaper cuttings on display. Their extended building is the Ashdown Park that stands today, converted into a hotel in 1993. It’s a remarkably elongated building on the top of an escarpment that overlooks a nine-hole golf course, a muddy lake with two fountains and an 18-acre wood. Inside the hotel, beyond reception with its open fireplace and three Victorian drawing rooms there are 106 bedrooms - though you would never guess it.
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Anyone arriving in Britain will scan their road atlas in vain for the Home Counties. What we mostly mean by “Home Counties” is those shires that surround London - and the attitudes of people who live there. The term may derive from the nineteenth-century Home Circuit of Assizes, which sent judges out from London to deal with local misdemeanours in neighbouring counties. Or it might come from the way that nineteenth-century railway developments made it possible for wealthy men working in London to commute back to a home in the leafy counties surrounding what was then the world’s biggest metropolis. Today the term conjures up images of big mock-Tudor houses built down the pretty country lanes that connect prosperous towns and villages.
Sights nearby- The hotel is only two minutes walk from Goethe's House. Business meetings- A convenient hotel, just minutes from the train station, with sleek modern rooms, business centre and hot breakfast buffet. Local markets- Just a five minute walk from locals shops, street vendors and artists. Just outside of London, discover the Home Counties with a short break away from the hustle and bustle of the city. They offer the best of both worlds from quaint villages and rolling countryside to coastal towns.
London and the Home Counties are waiting!
(The owners of West Dean, Evelyn and William James were friends of the king and in 1907 he had agreed to stand as godfather to their son, also called Edward.) So it was a brief visit, but it was enough for Mr Freemantle. Right up until Tudor times Ashdown was used by the British monarchy and nobility for sport. Henry VIII had a hunting lodge at Bolebroke Castle in Hartfield from where he courted Anne Boleyn at nearby Hever Castle. Nothing says Home Counties more than Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin playing Pooh Sticks in the Hundred Acre Wood? Before the Norman Conquest Ashdown Forest was an ancient area of open heathland in Sussex.
The UK is certainly diverse meaning there are lots of unique outings to be enjoyed across the country. Marcus Crouch has identified one of the principal characteristics of the home counties as being a shared chalk geology that is broadly mirrored north and south of the Thames. Set in an enviable position overlooking the River Thames, all of the Swan's bedrooms have been refurbished to very high standards.
In 1930 Nutfield Priory became a hotel with golf course owned by Mr Oliver Picton Davis. After a spell as a school, it became a hotel once more in 1988, when it had a sympathetic renovation by Handpicked Hotels that restored its stone carvings, wood panelling, marble fireplaces and organ. It’s difficult to imagine anyone less Brighton in outlook than the influential Bloomsbury novelist, Virginia Woolf, but her country home, Monk’s House is only 11 miles in land. Staying at Bailiffscourt can be a very romantic experience, especially in winter, as seven of the 39 bedrooms have open hearths and real log fires. On the war memorial in Midhurst the name of Alfred Moses Freemantle is inscribed as one of those men killed in action during the First World War.
Most of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, leaving the first floor to create the most impact with wrap-around floor-to-ceiling windows, spiral staircases, terraces, fire pits and look-out towers. Rubens at the Palace Rubens at the Palace, Westminster, London, SW1W 0PS. Rubens at the Palace is a four star hotel situated opposite Buckingham Palace. Time your visit appropriately to watch – from the hotel’s lounge – the royal horses coming out of the Royal Mews. It looks like a medieval village by the seashore but is actually a number of historic buildings that were taken apart and reassembled on Climping Beach. Future plans for the hotel include a new visitor lounge where guests can take time out and help themselves to Denbies wine using the Enotech system.
The Pilot Inn The Pilot Inn, Greenwich, Greater London, SE10 0BE. Virtually on the steps of the O2 Arena, the 200 year old Pilot Inn blends contemporary comfort with rich history. Built in the early 1800s to serve the local coal workers, it now offers 10 beautiful, boutique bedrooms and a traditional pub restaurant. Another remarkable Home Counties home, this time not a hotel, is Standen House which lies 14 miles south of Nutfield Priory. It was built over three years from 1891 to 1894 to designs by architect Philip Webb, in the Arts & Crafts style, as popularised by William Morris. Webb actually designed Morris' home, the Red House in Bexleyheath for him. When work on Standen House was completed, his clients the Beale family presented him with a silver snuff box, engraved with ‘When clients talk irritating nonsense, I take a pinch of snuff’, a witty testament to their working relationship.
There are just six rooms, most overlooking a lily pad-filled lake and they are kept deliberately simple; there are no telephones or fridges while breakfasts are delivered in hampers each morning. The food is vegetarian and Kerelan in style, with mild curries; the retreats and treatments are similarly purist, including the four-handed Abhyanga massage. Kent, Hertfordshire, Sussex, Surrey, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Essex make up the Home Counties; the girdle that rings London, nipped in by the M25. Increasingly, there are some serious bits of Green Belt glamour tucked into the oft-stereotyped commuter-land, including the brand new Birch in Hertfordshire with its rescue chickens and gong baths. It’s lavishly, diametrically opposed to Birch in every stylistic way, but just as interesting and enjoyable, with its swimming pool tiled in a diamond pattern and 1920s decor with a touch of sashimi chic. Beyond the rooms and suites in the main hotel, The Forbury also has The Forbury Apartments, a modern collection of 16 two-bedroom serviced apartments adjacent to The Forbury.
After World War II, and following Lord Moyne’s assassination in Palestine, the Guinness family sold the estate to a German refugee, Emmy Birrer who with her husband, Hans turned it into a 39-room hotel. Once upon a time Barnett Hill was once nothing more than a wooded hill, which from its topmost point offered impressive views across the Surrey hills. This stunning location caught the eye of Frank Cook, grandson of renowned travel agent Thomas Cook. In 1905 he constructed here a Queen Anne-style mansion as his family home.
A little further down the hill stands The Spread Eagle, a pub that Alfred’s father, also Alfred Freemantle used to run. Pick one of these hotels below, or if you'd like to see our other full range of hotels click here. Let us inspire you with stories about what's new and exciting in luxury travel.
The home counties are some of the wealthiest in Britain with the towns of Virginia Water, Esher and Weybridge, all in Surrey, ranked in one 2019 survey as having some of the highest average house prices in the country. Significant areas of deprivation were also found in the urban areas of south Hampshire and Slough. Marcus Crouch, writing in 1975, thought that it derived from the Home Counties Circuit of courts that since at least the 18th century had surrounded London.
Today, The Forbury holds the distinguished title as Reading’s sole true luxury hotel, where traditional country house comfort meets high art and contemporary flair. The Forbury Hotel, situated 40 miles from London in the buzzing town of Reading, is a dashing British getaway. The century-old red brick building first functioned as a county hall and became a luxury 23-bedroom boutique hotel in 2006 with much fanfare. The Crown Old Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP7 0DH. With its inglenook fires, crooked floors and cobbled courtyard, this former coaching inn offers a selection of traditional and modern bedrooms, as well as an award-winning restaurant. At the end of the Metropolitan Line, Amersham is just a tube ride away from Central London.
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