The Good Hotel Guide: Editors Top Ten Picks for a Romantic Break

The Good Hotel Guide recommends a terrific variety of hotels that are the perfect destinations for a honeymoon or wedding night, from the luxurious and historic to the far flung and delightfully quirky. As the 2024 edition goes live online, we asked the editors to share with us here at Weddings & Honeymoons this year’s top ten picks for a romantic break, spoiler alert… Some even come with their own wedding facilities!

For full details click here or visit: https://www.goodhotelguide.com/editors-choice-romantic-hotels/

Hedingham Castle

Castle Hedingham, Essex

You could not ask for a more exclusive honeymoon suite than the Royal Chamber, the only guest room in arguably Britain’s best-preserved Norman castle keep in 160 acres of parkland. You climb a spiral staircase to the top, to find a richly draped four-poster bed, chilled champagne, and a bathtub big enough for two. Dine à deux in the banqueting hall, under a soaring arch, and awake to a feast of a continental breakfast. The castle estate is also a truly photogenic wedding venue, with a grand Georgian country house and ballroom marquee. Say your vows on the lawn beside a lake, or by candlelight in the keep itself.

Royal Chamber from £495, with dinner for two £1,150, hedinghamcastle.co.uk.

Tresanton

St Mawes, Cornwall

Image Credit to Paul Massey.

Bedrooms and suites are spread over a cluster of whitewashed houses on the cliffside, all with a sea view, at Olga Polizzi’s fun, super-stylish hotel. Honeymooners might book a suite with a log burner and a sea-facing terrace, while a trip around Falmouth Bay aboard 1930s yacht Pinuccia makes for a memorable day. Tresanton holds a marriage licence, but traditionalists will prefer to tie the knot at the beautiful 14th-century church of St Just in Roseland. The hotel can accommodate up to 50 seated guests, 100 standing, and offers exclusive weekend use for a party. An events manager will help you to realise your dream wedding, while head chef Paul Wadham works with you to create your perfect menu.

B&B doubles from £290, à la carte £60, thepolizzicollection.com.

Lewtrenchard Manor

Lewdown, Devon

In a secluded Dartmoor valley, this 17th-century manor house in gardens and parkland has a captivating historic ambience. Gilt-framed portraits gaze down from dark panelled walls in rooms furnished with antiques and licensed to host civil weddings. Astonishingly, the whole place was largely remodelled by Victorian squire, parson and prolific writer Sabine Baring Gould, father of 15, who installed Renaissance woodwork, a fabulously ornate Jacobean plaster ceiling and two-tier Rococo fireplace. There is even a beauty treatment room within a folly. Melton bedroom has a carved oak four-poster said to have belonged to Charles I’s wife, Henrietta Maria, with views over a sunken garden and fountain, but the dual-aspect St Gertrude gallery suite is our top choice.

B&B doubles from £170, set-price menu £65, tasting menu £85, lewtrenchard.co.uk.

Fischer’s at Baslow Hall

Baslow, Derbyshire

Built in 1907, this Jacobean-style manor house overlooks five landscaped acres at the heart of the Peak District. The ambience is cosseting, with period furniture, log fires and fine fabrics. Vernon room has an antique half-tester bed, oriental-inspired furnishings, and a long view to the hunting tower at Elizabethan Chatsworth through leaded-light windows. If you prefer something more spacious, contemporary-style rooms in a garden annexe have secluded terrace seating within a private walled garden. On request the management can arrange for a bottle of champagne and a floral bouquet to await your arrival. Wander the grounds to discover the lily pond, fountain lawn, thyme walk, beehives, arboretum and woodland glade, before sampling chef Adam Thackeray’s creative modern cooking in the fine-dining restaurant.

B&B doubles from £197, set-price 4/5-course menu £95, fischers-baslowhall.co.uk.

Gilpin Hotel and Lake House

Windermere, Cumbria

The Lake District is one of Britain’s most breathtakingly scenic destinations, and the Gilpin Hotel, in 21-acre grounds, has some very special hideaways. Spa suites with views of mountains, woodland and rushing stream, have floor-to-ceiling windows and patio doors onto a decked garden with a fountain water feature and stone hot tub, a bedroom that ‘floats’ over a pond, and a private spa room. Cedar-clad spa lodges have a private spa, mood lighting, fire, music system and hydrotherapy hot tub. You can dine at Michelin-starred Source, or more casually, on pan-Asian fare, at Spice. Six-bedroom sister property Lake House, a mile away, in 100-acre grounds, has a civil wedding licence and a dedicated team to take care of every detail.

B&B doubles from £305, spa lodges around £446, spa suites £774, tasting menu £120 (Source), à la carte £40 (Gilpin Spice), thegilpin.co.uk.

Penally Abbey

Penally, Pembrokeshire

Within landscaped and woodland gardens, home to a 12th-century chapel, the Boissevain family’s Georgian Gothic country house has sublime views over Carmarthen Bay. All the bedrooms are exquisitely decorated, with a soft, dreamy palette and hand-picked antiques. Sea-facing, dual-aspect Room 5 has a French-style, velvet-lined super-king-size bed from which to watch the sunrise over the sea through quaint ogee-headed windows. Room 7 has beautiful bespoke ‘Garden of Dreams’ wallpaper, an emperor-size bed and a ‘secret’ shower room behind a mirrored door. In candlelit Rhosyn Restaurant, you can linger over the tasting menu or order sharing plates, after walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path, over clifftops carpeted with wildflowers in springtime.

B&B doubles from £235, tasting menu £70, small plates £11-£15, penally-abbey.com.

The Pig at Bridge Place

Canterbury, Kent

Bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Kinks once played at this former music venue, a Jacobean manor house almost within the sound of Canterbury Cathedral bells. Like all Pig hotels, it is relaxed and easy going, with shabby-chic interiors, wood panelling, oak fireplaces and cosy corners. Every room has character, perhaps a carved oak four-poster or an in-room bathtub. Some coach house rooms have stairs to a mezzanine bathroom. More unusual are hop pickers’ huts, raised on stilts in a water meadow, with a double-bedroom, free-standing bath, monsoon shower and wood-burning stove, and two wagons by a stream, with double-ended bath or power shower and secluded terrace. A comfy sofa in the bar is the place to enjoy cocktails, while in the restaurant the menus are composed around produce from the prolific kitchen garden.

Doubles from £200, hut or wagon £460, breakfast £13.50–£18.50, à la carte £50, thepighotel.com/at-bridge-place/.

The Old Railway Station

Petworth, Sussex

How about time travelling back to the golden age of steam rail for a very special wedding night? Amid gentle Surrey countryside, possibly England’s prettiest disused station is today a B&B very popular for honeymoons and proposals. There are two rooms in the station house, but the real thrill is to book one of eight mahogany-fitted Pullman cars. Built between 1906 and 1923, Princess Ena, Flora, Mimosa, Alicante and the rest have been immaculately restored. A local florist can deliver a bouquet for your arrival, and you can enjoy a cream tea in the old booking hall or on the platform in the sunshine, with champagne or prosecco (pop the cork, then pop the question!). Breakfast is served in the waiting room, but, if you prefer, a picnic of fresh milk, orange juice and pastries can be delivered to your door. Your carriage awaits!

B&B doubles from £150, old-station.co.uk.

Hazlitt’s

London

Step-through the door of this Georgian terrace house in raffish, foodie Soho, and you enter a world of make-believe. Once home to the controversial William Hazlitt, critic, essayist and author of Liber Amoris (Book of Love), this small hotel is so much of its time, you half expect to bump into Hazlitt himself in all his wild-eyed brilliance. Bedrooms and suites have antiques, paintings, heavy drapes, perhaps a 17th-century carved oak bed or Georgian four-poster. A suite named in honour of Teresa Cornelys, operatic soprana and one time mistress of Casanova’s, has a private sitting room, a huge bed with hand-carved gilded cherubs, a dressing table hidden behind panelling, and, on one wall, a portrait of La Cornelys herself. There is a room-service menu, and, in this cosmopolitan district, restaurants abound.

Room only, doubles from £329, breakfast dishes £11.95, hazlittshotel.com.

Monachyle Mhor

Balquidder, Stirling

If you’re in search of the ultimate love nest, we think we’ve found it, an architect-designed, timber chalet named ‘In the Trees’, at this remote loch-side farmhouse-turned-restaurant-with-rooms, set against a backdrop of mountains. Or roll up, roll up for the 1950s Pilot Panther showman’s wagon with retro interior and wood burner and a mini-kitchen area for basic self-catering. Scandi-chic farmhouse rooms have whitewashed walls, designer lighting, brightly coloured throws, maybe an in-room egg-shaped bath. Chef Marysia Paszkowska sources produce from the home farm and kitchen garden, venison from the surrounding hills, and locally foraged ingredients, for her award-winning modern Scottish cooking. After breakfast take a walk on the wild side, along a single-track lane skirting Loch Voil.