The many repeat guests know exactly what to expect days out on the Fal and Helford Rivers in a vintage launch, croquet on the lawn, formal dinners, flambée and sweet trollies circulating, even a chauffeur service. No list of timeless hotels could omit this “‘country house by the sea”’ on beautiful Carne Beach, opened in 1988 by the splendid Bettye Gray, then aged 70 and run today by her grandson Toby. Here, then, are 10 very different hotels, in very different places, that all pass the test and defy time. Antiques and oil paintings in gilt frames are helpful and sofas are vitally important, as well as a thoughtful selection of books. While they certainly don’t espouse minimalism or slick modernity – heaven forbid – they don’t have to be dated either, but they must exude an air of traditional British comfort. Of course, decoration is the most immediate clue to a timeless hotel.
#SUN HAVEN CAMPSITE CORNWALL FULL#
That old stalwart, the dessert trolley, is becoming as rare as trouser presses, though not afternoon tea, which is a ritual, not a gimmick, and breakfast, which is likely to be a well-judged full English feast. Neat black and white uniforms will often play a part, and you can usually expect a reassuring air of formality in dining rooms laid with linen and silver, candles and fresh flowers.įood too, is likely to be classic rather than creative, Anglo-French rather than Asian-fusion, with a natural emphasis on local produce since many timeless hotels, country ones at least, are rooted in their local community. Service in timeless hotels will be warm and natural – not even the most old-fashioned places do stiff and aloof anymore – but also courteous and deferential rather than laidback. What can you see? Perhaps drinks brought on a silver salver, antiques gleaming with polish, menus on card, not tablet, watchful ancestors on the walls, decanters of whiskey or sherry in the bedrooms.Ĭontinuity is the key here, signalling unbroken daily rhythm, and a refuge from the world where an unseen, silent motor powers the hotel through the years, whatever life throws at it.
What can you hear? Croquet, perhaps, and birdsong, the clink of china tea cups, the crackle of a fire in the hearth and of a newspaper being read in an armchair. No bad thing: for many people the contemporary and the cutting edge is the draw, but for every guest who feels most at home among exposed brick and polished concrete, there’s another one, perhaps more into a good book than a designer cocktail, who craves the comforting, reassuring certainty that comes with continuity and tradition. The vast majority of hotels in this country open, close, change hands, change styles, change their entire personality with the whirling regularity of a merry-go-round. One thing is certain: timeless hotels are rare. But while age is normally a common factor, timeless hotels can occasionally be relatively new, somehow already possessing the assurance and dignity of a place that stands the test of time (Cornwall’s The Nare and Lime Wood in the New Forest). Others still are grand dames that have had millions spent on them to bring them fully into the present day, but whose owners who have been careful to preserve the past, thereby allowing their qualities of enduring agelessness to remain undimmed (the Ritz and the Goring in London). Some British hotels that feel timeless are small family-owned establishments, essentially unchanged but judiciously updated throughout the years (such as Dorset’s Plumber Manor and Gliffaes in the Brecon Beacons) a few are genuine time warps, frozen in the past but so loved and cared for that they remain touchingly appealing (Howtown in the Lake District and Northbank on the Isle of Wight). You are either an aficionado of such hotels or you aren’t if you are, this is for you. When is a traditional hotel timeless – and therefore endlessly appealing and touched by magic and when is it merely timeworn – and therefore seedy, drab and no fun at all? The answer is not entirely straightforward, for timeless hotels can be as much a state of mind as a set of rules, and they vary in style and type, from classic to cosy.
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