Cream Of The Crop: Our Travel Writers’ Top Hotel Picks

You’ll find plenty of ideas flicking through top ten lists, scrolling on TikTok or even browsing our brand new Great British & Irish Hotels Guide – but where do travel writers, whose job is to track down the very best hotels, actually stay? We’ve asked ours to share their favourites.

The British Hotels Travel Writers Love To Stay In

Pamela Goodman

Travel Writer & Editor-at-Large, House & Garden

Best ever bed, sleep or bedroom… Penmaenuchaf Hall, superbly located on a rugged, wooded hillside overlooking the Mawddach Estuary and embraced by the mountains of southern Snowdonia. After a recent makeover by Nicola Harding, the Mawddach Suite, one of four attic rooms, has pretty wallpaper drifting over walls and ceilings, a carefully curated blend of Welsh art, crafts and furniture to create a true sense of place, and a sumptuously comfortable bed to retreat to after a day in the great outdoors. penmaenuchaf.co.uk

Best outdoor pool… Few can rival Cliveden’s infamous ‘Profumo’ pool, so called after the chance poolside encounter of politician John Profumo and the model Christine Keeler, whose subsequent illicit affair changed the course of 20th century British history. The only Grade II-listed swimming pool in Britain, it is enclosed within an exquisite walled garden. clivedenhouse.co.uk

Best breakfast… The Pig Hotels know better than any other how to deliver a proper buffet breakfast. No stale Coco Pops in a jar and no ubiquitous, planet-busting avocado on toast either; instead, I was given delicious, crushed peas from the garden on which to balance my poached eggs. thepighotel.com

Pamela Goodman singles out the stunning walled gardens at Heckfield Place

Best walled garden… Heckfield Place, where the painstaking garden restoration now plays a signature role within the beautiful grounds of this Hampshire hotel. Discover an expertly planted ornamental English flower garden where colour and scent drifts amongst immaculately maintained gravel pathways. heckfieldplace.com

Best detail… The Bull’s Head in the tiny Black Mountain hamlet of Craswall in Herefordshire, which recently opened four cabins in a pretty wildflower meadow. This is serious walking country, so the pub thoughtfully provides an Ordnance Survey map in each cabin, plus a waterproof map pouch for slinging round your neck on rainy days. wildbynaturellp.com

Best setting… The Seaside Boarding House, occupying an Edwardian villa directly above Chesil Beach, where you can have sand between your toes within 20 paces of the front door while the glorious South West Coast path trundles right past. The pretty Dorset village of Burton Bradstock is close by and there’s mile upon mile of Jurassic Coast to explore. You might even catch dolphins playing in the sea from the comfort of your bed. theseasideboardinghouse.com

Luke Abrahams

Travel & Luxury Lifestyle Journalist

Best ever bed, sleep or bedroom… The Fife Arms. I was flat out dead. Pair that with the sound of absolute nothingness and you have the recipe for a good night’s sleep. I am also a sucker for a canopy: you feel cocooned, adding to that feeling of absolute comfiness. thefifearms.com

Best outdoor pool… Cliveden. It is sceney as well as historical. I never actually swam in it and instead simply observed the who’s who of the English glitterati swerve lap after lap from the hot tub, champers in hand. clivedenhouse.co.uk

Best breakfast… Prestonfield House in Edinburgh. I had a full Scottish breakfast: sweet scones, tatties and all. It was one of those ‘destination breakfasts’ that stays with you – and your gut. prestonfield.com

The Fife Arms delivered sound sleep for Luke Abrahams

Best walled garden… The Pig Hotels. They rule the walled garden crew, on ethos and aesthetics. You can tell they genuinely care as a B Corp, and the gardeners encourage you to learn everything from soil quality to what grows best each season. thepighotel.com

Best detail… The Newt in Somerset, one of those rare beasts that really embraces their locale, from pagan customs to the people who work there. They genuinely care about where they are, their effect on their patch and boosting the local economy. I think that’s the best kind of detail you can get. thenewtinsomerset.com

Best setting… The Torridon in Scotland. You feel really alone and isolated here, with nothing but mountains and lochs to keep you company. If you need to sweep away those cerebral cobwebs, go here and fast. thetorridon.com

Francesca Syz

Consultant Luxury Travel Editor, Daily Telegraph

Best ever bed, sleep or bedroom… Soho Hotel’s Terrace Suite, with its great, big light-filled bedroom and drawing room, its bold, wonderfully whimsical Kit Kemp interior design and the most fabulous wrap-around terrace overlooking the rooftops of Soho. Of all the fancy London rooms I’ve stayed in, this is the cosiest and most like the home I’d have, if money were no object. firmdalehotels.com

Best outdoor pool… Beaverbrook in Surrey. It is heaven on sunny days and for those made of stern stuff, it is heated all year round. One of two pools at the hotel’s Coach House Spa, it is flanked by comfy day beds and the perfect place to while away a summer afternoon with friends. beaverbrook.co.uk

Best breakfast… When you stay at L’Enclume, Simon Rogan’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant with rooms in Cumbria, breakfast is served at his other restaurant in the village, the more relaxed Rogan & Co, which has a Michelin star of its own. There are no decisions to be made, they just bring each table a series of delicious dishes, including perfectly formed mini pancakes with yoghurt, honey and rhubarb sauce and the most elegant take on a full English imaginable, with excellent coffee. lenclume.co.uk

Francesca Syz’s best ever bedroom at Soho Hotel

Best kitchen garden… The Pig at Bridge Place. Nab a table at the outdoor kitchen for pizzas from the wood-fired oven and a bar serving superb local wines, beers and spirits. thepighotel.com

Best detail… The atmospheric Bar 190 at The Gore Hotel in Kensington. Others who have loved it before me include Judy Garland and The Rolling Stones, who held their Beggars Banquet album launch there in 1968, which descended into a custard pie fight, kicked off by Mick Jagger who hurled one at Brian Jones before the whole place erupted into chaos. collezione.starhotels.com

Share a secret… Rathmullan House on Lough Swilly in Donegal is my favourite Irish hotel. I can’t get enough of this elegant converted Georgian manor house with its cosy fire-lit drawing rooms, fantastic food, unpretentious service and pretty lawns that sweep down to a perfect golden sand beach. There is no more life-affirming way to start the year than by joining their New Year’s Day dip in the lough, before scampering back to the hotel for lunch. rathmullanhouse.com

Divia Thani

Global Editorial Director, Condé Nast Traveller

Best ever bed, sleep or bedroom… The Lady Astor suite at Cliveden comes with a glorious bed, rich tapestries and a sprawling balcony overlooking the lawns. Serious princess vibes. clivedenhouse.co.uk

Best pool… Estelle Manor’s poolside is a scene. Carry your most stylish bikini and sunglasses and for god’s sake, get a bit of a tan before you arrive. estellemanor.com

Best breakfast… The Newt has the best homemade chocolate croissants I’ve eaten outside Paris. thenewtinsomerset.com

Best detail… Fresh cow’s milk delivered in old-school bottles at Soho Farmhouse; it’s there, every morning, outside your door. And the daily 5pm martini ritual in your bedroom at Beaverbrook. sohohouse.com; beaverbrook.co.uk

Chris Haslam

Chief Travel Writer, The Times & Sunday Times

Best ever bed, sleep or bedroom… Room 43 at the Blakeney Hotel in Norfolk. Owner Emma Stannard has used the heart of a naturalist, the mind of a sleep scientist and and the eye of a museum curator to furnish this quayside Edwardian pile, filling rooms with antiques, wildlife engravings and Hypnos beds. The bedrooms at the front are best because they look over Morston salt marsh to Blakeney Head and the sea. Room 43, up in the eaves, is the pick of them because it has a rooftop terrace from which you can watch the geese taking off at dawn, the cinematic sunsets at dusk and, more often these days, the Northern Lights by night. blakeney-hotel.co.uk

Best setting… The Mullion Cove Hotel. It stands like a widow on the cliffs on the storm-battered western shore of Cornwall’s Lizard peninsula. Building began in 1889 in the fond hope that the railway would be extended from Helston. It never happened but that allowed the hotel to exist in splendid isolation on one of the beautiful and dramatic stretches of the British coast. Book room 110 or 210 for a couple of nights in November, then lie in a warm bath beside the picture window and watch the storms roll in. mullion-cove.co.uk

Room 43 at the Blakeney Hotel in Norfolk, where Chris Haslam likes the view over the salt marshes to the sea

Best detail… The astonishing beauty at Renvyle House in Galway on the west coast of Ireland. This is one of the most extraordinary hotels I’ve ever stayed in, and I’d happily return on foot, if necessary. It sits beside a lake, next to a beach, at the foot of the 12 Bens of Connemara and looking north over Crump Island to Inisturk. The history is even more spectacular: once home of the chieftain Donal O’Flaherty – husband of the pirate queen Granuaile, or Grace O’Malley – the house then passed to the Blakes, who considered themselves descended from a Knight of the Round Table. It was burned down by the Ra in 1923, and rebuilt by the statesman and poet Oliver St John Gogarty, who entertained WB Yeats here. renvyle.com