50 small and lovely UK hotels for less than £150 a night

You wait two years for a minibreak then two come along at once. First, a multi-generational get-together in the Cotswolds at the Swan Inn, stone the colour of honey and set on the dreamy banks of the Windrush beside an absurdly comely bridge. The barman walked us to our room, which felt like home only nicer – roll-top bath, homemade biscuits, window flung wide on the whole delightful scene. In the morning, the rescue hens had laid eggs for breakfast.

The following weekend, Bristol with old friends. A fancy hotel for a treat – one of the city’s grandest, now run by an international chain that shall remain nameless. Alright, I’ll tell you: it was the Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel. Victorian façade, shiny revolving doors, checker-board marble lobby.

Impressive, but, I quickly realised, inescapably corporate, complete with a queue at check-in, £20 parking fee, Wi-Fi for members only. The swimming pool had closed because, they said, it “no longer made sense financially” (Marriott generated US$13.86bn revenue last year). The window would not open in our stuffy, greige room (twice the price of the inn, incidentally) and there were no fewer than 10 plastic miniatures in the bathroom. At breakfast I asked where the anaemic sausages had come from. “From the kitchen,” explained the waitress gently, after a pause.

Now, it’s not that I don’t love a posh hotel. When they’re getting it right (and the luxury hotel sector is booming, ever-more five-star hotels getting ever-more fabulous) they can be fantasy wonderlands, every aspect of life honed just-so.

Yet simultaneously, accelerated by the climate crisis and pandemic-induced shifts, the desire to live and travel better has fuelled our appetite for small-scale staycations. A wave of coaching inns and coastal pubs are being reimagined by a new generation of savvy young hoteliers, designers and trailblazing chefs to satisfy Champagne taste on a beer-bottle budget. And there’s a new breed of gourmet guesthouse emerging – gems such as Coombeshead Farm in Cornwall and Glebe House in Devon, run by families passionate about food, interiors and the planet.

These are places that are loved by their owners, who have slept in every room and chosen every book on the shelves and painting on the wall, whose personal touch delights at every turn. Where fine dining is always seasonal and local – from the kitchen garden, perhaps, or a neighbouring farm, but never, ever, just “from the kitchen”.

Here are 50 small and lovely hotels, from coast to countryside, which are proving it’s possible to offer a wonderful, memorable stay for a price that’s accessible to all.


Glebe House 

Southleigh, Devon

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