The top 10

From grande dames to brand-new boltholes and everything in between, COUNTRY LIFE rounds up the hotels and villas that should be top of your wishlist in 2021

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Weekend break Thyme, Southrop, England

MANY hotels delight—they do what they say on the box (or website)—but few surprise. Thyme, a village-style hotel in the Cotswolds, is one of those rare beasts: a hotel that looks like a normal hotel from the outside, but feels quite different on the inside, a place created with such passion and thought that you cannot help fall under its spell. I realised just how much I loved it during breakfast (served in a vast, vaulted barn, formerly for oxen): there was not a crushed, smashed or stuffed avocado—the breakfast food threatening world domination and deforestation—in sight. I was told that seasonal smashed pumpkin sometimes graces the menu and is always a great success.

Other idiosyncrasies include a springwater swimming pool and the odd chicken inspecting the herb garden. The on-site shop is so successful that Thyme’s own-brand silk homeware (the patterns are inspired by the extensive gardens) is now stocked in Liberty.

Talking of gardens: the courtyard space between the cookery school, aforementioned Ox Barn and Garden Rooms was designed by Bunny Guinness. I visited in September, when there was plenty of time to appreciate it: structural arches, arbours and hedges protecting more transient plants, such as gaura, verbena and wispy grasses. Beyond are the water meadows, an important conservation site for migratory reed warblers.