The great escapes
By Sorrel Downer and Mark Jones
Published: December 30 2005 02:00 | Last updated: December 30 2005 02:00
I don't think Joan Armatrading ever reviewed hotels, writes Mark Jones. But she did write the mantra for anyone who follows that stern calling: "Just give me love, and affection - this time with a little dedication . . . "
And that's all we want. In a business of cold toast and colder welcomes, cynical bean counters, inflated bills and deflating dinners, we're desperate to find those rare souls who care about details, care about their guests and make the bill an irrelevance.
West Stoke House, near Chichester, West Sussex
Owner Rowland Leigh used to run a post-production company in Soho. The care and attention he used to apply to manipulating advertisements is now lavished on the Georgian house he has turned into one of southern England's more serene experiences. There's love and affection in everything from the cooking to the furniture to the coat of painstakingly-researched vintage paint on the walls. The grounds are an English dream of formality and mellowness. I started out thinking that a proper escape meant putting a good couple of hundred miles between myself and London. West Sussex has put me right. For culture, grandeur, contemporary art and rural timelessness, nowhere comes close.
Price: £65 per person per night. Tel. +44 (0)1243-575 226; www.weststokehouse.co.uk
The Place, Camber Sands, Kent
Matt Wolfman, a former advertising man, has taken this 1950s motel next to the emptiest stretch of sand in Kent and given it a New World gastro makeover. He has realised you can't change the size and shape of the building but you can make the rooms fresh, creamy and soundproofed. And you can get the details right: from wonderful huge pillows to digital radios. The restaurant does local and fresh in the best Anglo-Mediterranean style. It has film nights, creative away-days and, I suspect, more fun than at any time since the days when the East End used to come down en masse to pick whelks.
Price: from £85 a night. Tel: +44 (0)1797-225 057; www.theplacecambersands.co.uk
The Grove, Chandler's Cross, Hertfordshire
I want to finish not with a local hero but with the biggest and glossiest hotel project England has seen in years. There's a lot of competition in this category but the Grove has set the pace and tone for Hotel Britannia and I haven't the willpower to resist satirising this huge resort in footballers' wives country - near Watford, for heaven's sake. But you can't help love the scope, daring and sheer wit of the place.
There are mad art installations in the public places and rock 'n' roll glam in the bedrooms; yet the view from the windows in the old wing is more expansive and tranquil than anywhere so near the M25 has a right to be.
Price: from £240 (£420 for the Mansion rooms) Tel: +44 (0)192-380 780; www.thegrove.co.uk
We might be in deepest mid-winter, writes Sorrel Downer, but for country house hotels it has been one extended springtime, with bright, fresh and frankly beautiful properties continuing to emerge on the edge of fields, moors and woodland from the tip of Scotland to Land's End. Distance is irrelevant when cheap flights mean destinations such as Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin, Belfast, Newquay and the Channel Islands all lie just over an hour from London.
Ardanaiseig, Argyll, Scotland
Located in an area the size of Greater London but with a population of just 800,this comfortably wins the wild yet civilised, remote yet surprisingly accessible (particularly if you have a helicopter) award. The old country house sits on the shores of Loch Awe in the Scottish Highlands and is surrounded by forests and bens. Guests can also find splendid isolation in the old walled garden, or by untying a boat on the jetty and rowing for 10 miles. Ardanaiseig is owned by Bennie Gray of Gray's Antiques and furnished accordingly, with fabulous cherry-picked antiquities throughout and offbeat, amusing pieces of art. You will also find those squashy suede settees much-loved by fugitives from urban stress and an audacious colour scheme of petrol blues, golds, deep reds and Opal Fruit green chosen with cheerful confidence by a set designer from the Scottish Opera. Witty, homely and utterly lovely.
Price: £79-£84 per person per night including breakfast. Tel +44 (0)1866-833 333; www.ardanaiseig.com
Seaham Hall, Seaham, Co Durham
For keeping the atmosphere of this grand, white Georgian house intact while embellishing its rooms with power showers, Bang & Olufsen televisions, much remote control gadgetry and oriental orchids, this wins the contradiction-in-terms category: historic yet modern. There is also a phenomenal and beautifully designed wonder-world spa, complete with outdoor hot tubs, pools, Asian-fusion café, chill-out zone, steam and the scent of frangipani. Who would have thought a weekend in the north-east of England could be as restorative as a week in Tahiti? The food - modern British - is fantastic too, served with style in the romantic and candlelit White Room Restaurant.
Price: weekend rate is£245-£565 for two guests (in a double room) including breakfast and spa. Tel: +44 (0)191-516 1400; www.seaham-hall.com
Mar Hall, Bishopton, near Glasgow, Scotland
On the banks of the surprisingly bucolic Clyde yet just 15 minutes from Glasgow airport, Mar Hall merits inclusion here both for convenience and tongue-in-cheek grandeur. Occupying a magnificent 19th-century gothic mansion, it has at its heart a Grand Hall,36 metres of old oak parquet, sunshine and chandeliers like frosted cobwebs dangling from an ornate ceiling, with clusters of sofas on either side for those who want to break the journey to the restaurant with a glass of champagne or two. Grand yet unstuffy, Mar Hall is also impressive yet welcoming, with super-professional and naturally friendly staff.
Price: double rooms from £175-£475 (suite) Tel +44 (0) 141-812 9999, www.marhall.com