4. Gilpin Hotel & Lake House, Cumbria
Famous for its fabulous spa facilities, Gilpin is a family-run hotel in beautiful Windermere. Offering sanctuary to the world-weary since 1919, when Joseph Cunliffe needed to escape Manchester after suffering lung damage during the First World War, the original Arts and Crafts house began with five bedrooms and now boasts 14, with six garden suites in a separate annexe. But the pièce de résistance is the clutch of latest additions: five cedar-clad spa lodges each with a private en suite spa and surrounded by a walled garden. And if that weren’t choice enough, there’s also the Fake House on a separate 100-acre estate: just six individual suites that share a fully staffed boutique hotel by a private lake enveloped by woodland.
5. Hartwell House & Spa, Buckinghamshire
“Why wouldst thou leave calm Hartwell’s green abode?” asked Lord Byron of Louis XVIII’s return, in 1814, to assume his throne in France. The exiled king held court at Hartwell for five years and was one in a long line of illustrious guests there. Just an hour’s drive from central London, Hartwell stands in 94 acres of exquisitely landscaped Buckinghamshire parkland veritably littered with beautiful things – a ruined Gothic church, stately lake bridge and numerous 18th-century statues and garden buildings. Stay in the house itself; Hartwell Court, the estate’s converted coach-house; or the Old Rectory. Hartwell Spa is suitably stately, inspired by the design of an orangery, with nods to 18th-century classicism even in the design of the swimming pool.
