The Man Behind George Asda Has Opened A New Cotswolds Hotel – Here’s Our Verdict

The retail visionary behind Next, George at Asda, and Per Una, George Davies, has turned to hospitality for his next venture – opening House of George W Davies in the Cotswolds. Jane Knight spends the night.

Hotel Review: The House Of George W Davies

This has long been a village that inspires. With its honeyed streets and rolling hills, the Cotswolds village of Broadway became the stage where artists, writers and musicians gathered at the close of the 19th century. John Singer Sargent captured the dusk in Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose here, Francis Davis Millet painted Between Two Fires at Abbots Grange (now a delightful B&B), and William Morris used the folly of Broadway Tower as a summer retreat with his Arts and Crafts friends. Later, in the 20th century, Gordon Russell built his furniture design empire in the village after his father bought The Lygon Arms.

Now another creative has set up shop. George Davies – the visionary behind Next, George at Asda, and Per Una for Marks & Spencer – has just opened a ten-room hotel on the High Street, bringing a fresh flourish of design and imagination to a village that clearly celebrates artistry.

And The House of George W Davies is every bit as stylish as the fashion empire its namesake created. The 17th-century building, its exterior set off by lavender and bay, might look pure Cotswolds on the outside, but inside it’s a different story – a masterpiece of contemporary cool.

Step from the busy pavement through the ancient doorway and the first thing you see is the bar with its curved brass counter, modern art splashed across exposed stone, and zig-zag rug breaking up pale wooden boards. Further on, the restaurant feels bare in comparison, its white tables highlighted by splashes of colour in the form of pale green banquettes and a glass wall sculpture. Even the staff uniforms are part of the pinky-green palette: floral shirts for the women, green stripes monogrammed with Davies’ initials for the men.

‘The men’s shirts were inspired by a gift from a long-ago girlfriend,’ Davies reveals. ‘I loved that shirt.’ We’re sitting in the snug – squishy sofas, an eye-catching striped rug on the floor, a fireplace big enough to roast an ox – along with his fourth wife, Arlene. After decades shaping high street fashion, Davies is after a new challenge. ‘I’ve done so much in retail all over the world,’ he tells me. ‘Now it’s time for something different. I’m always looking for risk and excitement.’

Not that this village of 2,500 souls is short on places to stay. Among its offerings, the Lygon Arms, where Charles I and Cromwell both slept (on separate occasions), is just down the street; Farncombe Estate has three boutique boltholes nearby.

So why open yet another hotel in what is already a tourist honeypot? ‘It’s all about the social side for me – I love talking to people. This is like an extension of my home,’ says Davies. That home, for more than 30 years, is just outside Broadway, where Davies already owns a property portfolio so expansive I suggest that the village, named after its wide, long High Street, should be renamed Georgeway. He grins at the idea.

Davies was already landlord to everything from a florist’s and bridal boutique to an art gallery, clothes shop and restaurant when the old doctor’s surgery came up for sale. He snapped it up for almost £2m before embarking on a four-year transformation, working simultaneously on the George apartments, which opened in April (think George at Asda rather than Per Una in terms of style and price).

Hospitality was new territory, but Davies knew one thing mattered above all: detail. Which is presumably why his HG monogram pops up at the end of the loo roll as well as on hangers, key fobs and water bottles. ‘Detail translates from retail to hospitality,’ he says. ‘I can see something that needs amending before others.’

Much of the legwork fell to Arlene, alongside designer Laura Cole. They shaped the bedrooms – six tucked beneath beams and eaves up steep stairs that Davies, at 83, finds tough going, plus four more in a new annexe.

Arlene calls the look ‘modern comfort with a bit of sophistication. Not your typical Cotswold twee or Daylesford shabby chic’. She’s right. My room, with beams and exposed stone, comes with a TV hidden in a fabric box at the end of the bed and handmade Rothschild & Bickers glass lights. Best of all is the cushioned window seat, framed by shutters in Rapture & Wright’s hand-printed fabric. From here, I gaze out at Broadway’s High Street, with the thatched Cotswold Chocolate Company straight across the road and the distillery, with its Cotswold gin and whisky, a few doors away.

It’s a street crying out to be explored, so I set off to peruse the independent shops. There’s plenty to tempt, from a leather armchair in Catesbys, The Art of Living (£795) to a four-bottle Veuve Clicquot champagne cooler at Woodcock and Cavendish (yours for £199.95). The Broadway Deli, all flagstones and creaking stairs, almost has me beaten with its gleaming pies… but I resist.

Later, I’m glad I held off as I tuck into James Wilson’s tasting menu at the House of George’s Moda (whose name, like the hotel’s, references Davies’s fashion pedigree). The British dishes with a Nordic influence are clearly worthy of a Michelin star. Think courgette and basil soup accompanied by honey-milk bread with fennel pollen and lobster with corn velouté, among a procession of delectable dishes. The one that really impressed was the pudding: an elderflower tart with sheep’s yoghurt, lemon curd and olive oil. It was pure brilliance.

Plans are already in motion for a kitchen garden, then a farm and cookery school – making the House of George even more of a foodie hotspot.

A few tables away, some locals are in as much of a gourmet heaven as I am. In fact, it’s Alan Frimley’s fourth visit in little more than a week. ‘The food here is the best in the village, as is the service,’ he says, gesturing to Anthony Au Yeung, the ever-present operations manager who previously worked at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Hong Kong. Does he worry about yet more tourists flooding this Cotswolds hotspot? ‘We love the High Street being busy,’ he says.

The next morning, I take one last walk, tackling a hill so steep that stagecoach passengers once had to get out and trudge beside their horses. My target is Broadway Tower, an 18th-century folly of turrets, balconies and gargoyles. From the top, they say you can see 16 counties. William Morris stayed here, taking baths in a tin tub on the roof as there were no bathrooms.

The tower has always drawn creatives and dreamers, from Morris, who started his campaign for the preservation of historic monuments there, to the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It seems fitting, then, that Broadway’s newest creative has left his stamp on the village too. Thankfully, the House of George just down the hill offers considerably better plumbing, along with plenty of panache.

BOOK IT

B&B doubles cost from £250 a night (houseofgeorge.uk).