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

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.