Every year, our team of experts sets out on a mission across the length and breadth of the UK to eke out the very best hotels on the scene. Our pros check in to hundreds of properties as they traverse the country on the hunt for excellence, checking out everything from remote boutique bolt holes to historic estates and trendy restaurants with rooms. Only 100 standout hotels make the final cut, as revealed in The Times’ annual Best Places to Stay guide.
The 2025 list has brought plenty to celebrate — from newbies making serious waves to stalwarts that have truly upped their game — not least when it comes to the quality of those properties that offer true value for money. Over a third of the list come in at under £150 a night, and you’ll find them dotted across all corners of the country, because what’s better than a stylish stay with a warm welcome and great food that doesn’t cost the earth? The most affordable dates tend to be outside of peak periods like summer and Bank Holidays, with the lowest rates, unsurprisingly, midweek. These are the UK’s best hotels under £150 for 2025 … with a handy map to help you plot your next trip.
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1. The Stroud, Gloucestershire
This grade II listed Gloucestershire pad makes for an affordable stay that doesn’t scrimp on style. Having stood empty for four years, a £2 million top-to-toe makeover (completed last spring) has breathed fresh life back into this Cotswolds pub with rooms, while retaining all of its country-chic charm. Regular trains run back and forth to London Paddington from the tiny station just down the road and 24 unfussy, rustic-luxe rooms start from under £150 a night. The cash you’ve saved can be spent at Stroud’s weekly farmers’ market or cute independent shops. For something more active, take on one of two glorious walking routes on the doorstep: the Stroud Trail or Painswick Beacon. A concise menu of pub classics awaits on your return.
Details Room-only doubles from £125; mains from £19 (thestroudhotel.com)
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2. The Old Bell Hotel, Wiltshire
Safari-lodge-meets-modern-ranch-inspired Cotswolds stay: it shouldn’t work on paper, and yet … the Texan antiques dealer Whit Hanks and his wife, Kim, landed in the Cotswolds to trace their ancestors, but they soon fell in love with the biscuit-stone village of Malmesbury and snapped up the Old Bell Hotel in 2021. The 34-room bolt hole — claiming to be the oldest in England — was given an eccentric yet tasteful revamp that merged the hotel’s historic bones with contemporary edge: log fires, monkey figurines swinging from the bar, a life-sized (faux) giraffe in the lobby, and decorative angels lining the Abbey Row restaurant, a nod to the 12th-century abbey next door. Watch this space: the couple have also bought further properties nearby.
Details B&B doubles from £140; mains from £20 (oldbellhotel.co.uk)
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3. The Bull Charlbury, Oxfordshire
This glamorously minimalist, 21st-century tavern comes with a backstory that could have come straight from a bromance movie. Having gained a reputation for the Pelican, the trendiest pub in trendy Notting Hill, Phil Winser and James Gummer couldn’t resist the chance to pull off the same trick in their old teenage stomping ground. Returning to the classic Cotswolds village of Charlbury, not far from Chipping Norton, they took over the 16th-century inn where they had their first pints. Since the launch, the Bull’s won celebrity fans such as Jack Whitehall and a Michelin Bib Gourmand for the classy, open-fire pub grub. Elsewhere, Scandi-noir sexiness leads across the ten bedrooms.
Details B&B doubles from £150; mains from £23 (thebullcharlbury.com)
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4. Bike & Boot, Derbyshire
Since opening in 2023, this 60-room new-build has deliberately upended the Peak District paradigm. In an area characterised by cosy inns and cottage B&Bs, it is clean-edged, vibrant and avowedly modern, with well-priced rooms decked in eye-catching orange and white. The OS map wallpaper in the lobby tells you hikers and bikers are the target audience at this leisure hotel — as are dogs, which are welcome everywhere, get a free toy on arrival, and spar under the tables at breakfast. That is served in Bareca, the hotel’s ground-floor brasserie, where you can expect a modish bit-of-everything menu — pizzas, burgers, seafood, sundaes — delivered by jolly young waiting staff in front of a multicoloured cocktail bar.
Details Room-only doubles from £80; mains from £12 (bikeandboot.com)
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5. Grandtully Hotel, Perth and Kinross
This eight-room hideaway, a 90-minute drive from Edinburgh, has views over a frothy section of the River Tay. But while the service is relaxed, the bedrooms mid-century and the mood fun-loving (including bells dotted about downstairs with the instruction “Press for whisky”), the owners and brothers Chris and Andrew Rowley are deadly serious about dining. From small plates including haggis in the laid-back bar to impressive tasting menus in the romantic restaurant, you’re in for an affordable treat at this gastro guesthouse. You can walk it off on a yomp across the Tay Valley the day after. Trains to Grandtully may have stopped in the Sixties but this recently reinvented Victorian railway hotel remains on the right track.
Details B&B doubles from £140; mains from £16 (ballintaggart.com)
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6. House of Gods, Glasgow
You’ll find this like-it-or-leave-it party palace in central Glasgow’s Merchant City. The flamboyant boutique hotel is fast becoming one of the city’s coolest hangouts following its opening in April 2024, five years after the first House of Gods in Edinburgh. It’s set across five dimly lit storeys, with lots of fake foliage, gold accents and dark wood, plus fun decor including a Greek goddess statue rising out of a copper bath tub and brass monkeys crawling across tables. Bedrooms have raunchy red lighting over the (often four-poster) beds, and guests can ring a little bell for prosecco or milk and cookies at bedtime, brought by smiley young staff. It’s unsurprisingly adults-only, but affordable with it — and breakfast is included. A London outpost is set to open in Canary Wharf in autumn 2025.
Details B&B doubles from £110; small plates from £7 (houseofgodshotel.com)
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7. School Lane Hotel, Liverpool
The teacher-turned-hotelier Dave Brewitt gets a gold star for this clever conversion of an elegant Victorian building near the Royal Albert Dock. Here, he has created an edited version of luxury that is ideal for the cost-of-living crisis. So out go elements such as a full-service restaurant and pampering spa and, consequently, down go rates. There’s no scrimping on the 55 bedrooms though. They are minimalist cocoons with bespoke light oak furniture and virginal white fabrics complementing the original soaring ceilings and sash windows. Guests also enjoy complimentary tea, coffee and pastries for breakfast.
Details Room-only doubles from £66 (schoollanehotel.co.uk)
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8. SeaSpace, Cornwall
Best affordable hotel
The surf town of Newquay is in the midst of a sea change. In the east, the eye-catching district of Nansledan is taking shape, with stout new houses and an extraordinary Arts and Crafts primary school. Meanwhile, on the northern edge of town, SeaSpace has revitalised a 1970s aparthotel and turned it into something genuinely fresh and interesting. And no, we’re not talking about the Miami-flavoured, mint-green and salmon-pink colour scheme. Upstairs the well-planned apartments — ranging from studios to three-bedders — offer plenty of privacy and the majority come with sea views. But the real excitement is on the ground floor and in the gardens, where the fitness club, swimming pool, padel courts, playground and quality café and bar are already a hit with the local community. Even in winter it has a happy, purposeful buzz.
Details Self-catering double studios from £100; sharing plates from £5 (sea.space)
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9. Tolcarne Beach Village, Cornwall
You’d be forgiven for driving past the turning to the buzzy Tolcarne Beach Village, which is little more than a strip of tarmac off Newquay’s Narrowcliff road that seems to accelerate straight towards a precipice. But follow its sudden, dog-legged turn downwards and you’ll find the strangest of seaside treats: a rambling, eccentric and super-friendly gathering of hotel rooms, bold beach huts and apartments that sits right on the sand. The style is halfway between a surf camp and an antiques stall in Portobello Market — soundtracked by Gilbert & Sullivan, Abba and the Bee Gees (all available on vinyl in the bedrooms). Bring a wetsuit, your best pith helmet and a Hugh Grant (in Notting Hill) state of mind.
Details B&B doubles from £120; mains from £25 (tolcarnebeach.co.uk)
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10. Pier House, Cornwall
Charlestown’s petite port — south of St Austell — has played a leading role as a film set for decades. Now it has a quayside pub with rooms worthy of the red carpet. Reopened in June 2024 after a top-to-bottom refit, the Pier House stands like a beacon above a tight little knot of schooners and stout granite quays and delivers on its promise of storm-proof hospitality with classy sage green and strawberry bedrooms, posh pub grub and pints of Proper Job IPA. If you’re harbouring thoughts of a stirring seaside break this autumn, plot a course towards it.
Details B&B doubles from £125; mains from £15 (pierhousehotel.com)
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11. Manor House Inn, Somerset
This 17th-century inn in Ditcheat, near Bruton, is first past the post in the hunt for Somerset’s top pub with rooms. Alex Ferguson — the former Manchester United boss — keeps his racehorses at the stables of top trainer Paul Nicholls next door. Fergie’s known as a tough taskmaster but even he will be pleased with the pedigree of the new owner here. Chickpea Group runs some of the South West’s best country boozers — with a winning formula of quality and affordability — and recently unveiled a new look for this famous racing pub. “Chickpea chic” is much in evidence, so expect hop-festooned beams and candlelight from vintage silver candlesticks to enhance the building’s natural assets: flagstone floors, gothic windows and mellow-coloured exposed Somerset stone. The nine bedrooms are simply decorated but thoughtfully layered, and service is as smiley as Ferguson on a winning streak, so possibly the only people who won’t be happy are the jockeys — the food is delicious and the portions so generous they’d need to swerve the weighing scales for a month after a Sunday lunch here.
Details B&B doubles from £130; mains from £18 (manorhouseinnditcheat.co.uk)
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12. The Grosvenor Arms, Dorset
Country-casual charm is in abundance at this revamped grade II listed coaching inn in the Saxon hilltop town of Shaftesbury. It’s had several facelifts over the centuries and the latest has successfully loosened the old girl’s corsets without compromising her Georgian elegance. A mellow palette of earthy greens, browns and greys leads in the bedrooms, where abstract art, potted plants and blasts of blue and pillar-box red for cushions and throws inject extra energy. The shabby-chic bar has a cosy wood-burner, bedded-in leather sofas, mismatched banquette seats and a constant throng of locals, dropping in for coffees, cocktails and craft beers to keep the ambience cranked up to jolly. Food at the restaurant, overseen by Tom Blake — formerly of River Cottage — puts local, wild and organic produce to the fore.
Details Room-only doubles from £98; mains from £18 (grosvenorarms.co.uk)
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13. The Bath Arms, Wiltshire
This creeper-clad 18th-century destination pub in the village of Horningsham has become a proper neighbourhood spot over the past 50 years — not to mention a go-to for down-from-Londoners and families who want an affordable stay near Longleat safari park. The Bath Arms, opened in 2020, is the latest pub venture from southwest England’s Beckford Group, which takes old boozers and turns them into characterful spaces with twinkly, designery rooms. The vibe here is contemporary-cosy. The 16 rooms have soft pastel throws, velvet headboards and Roberts radios tuned to Classic FM; some have clawfoot tubs that are as inviting as the food. And what food: proper pub grub that puts Wiltshire produce front and centre is served in the candlelit inn downstairs, while all rates include a full English and bloody marys the next morning. An outside spa cabin, using Bramley products, was added in 2023 — but here, wellness comes in the form of lung-expanding tramps in the Longleat estate outside the front door.
Details B&B doubles from £120; mains from £17 (batharmsinn.com)
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14. Lido Townhouse, Bristol
Bristol Lido — a Victorian pool in gentrified Clifton — gave the UK’s great rekindled love of open-air swimming a kickstart when it reopened in 2008. The combination of (heated) waters, sauna, spa treatments and a Med-inspired restaurant (far preferable to vending machine NikNaks and KitKats) proved a winning one that attracted swimmers in their shoals. Sixteen years on, finally, the owners have opened five unfussy rooms in a townhouse just over the road so those water babies can make a weekend of it without travelling more than a few steps from tasteful bed to bathing. Reception, staffed by cheery locals, is in the lido building too. Some guests stay without swimming but the focus is very much on the lido; think of it as a pool with rooms.
Details Room-only doubles from £138; mains from £18 (lidobristol.com)
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15. Harbourmaster, Ceredigion
Wales hotel of the year
When this trailblazing boutique bolt hole opened on the west coast of Wales in 2002, there was nothing like its bold splash of style and substance for miles. It brought with it warm, Welsh hospitality in a space that wouldn’t have looked out of place in Brighton or St Ives. The influence rippled out, sparking a tourism renaissance. But even as others have caught up, the Harbourmaster has kept pace. The hotel lords it over Aberaeron’s historic quay with swagger, classy seaside styling, fuss-free but bang-on coastal flavours and a cheery welcome. Indeed, it’s the latter that makes the Harbourmaster stand out: you get the smartly done, special-stay feel but with the cosy, friendly vibe of a family-run B&B. And with free cake to boot.
Details B&B doubles from £145; mains from £17 (harbour-master.com)
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16. Inn at the Sticks, Carmarthenshire
Don’t let the Inn at the Sticks’ austere exterior deter you — when you step within this remote pub with rooms on the Tywi Estuary, you will be immediately drawn in. First, there’s the tasteful revamp of this Llansteffan village institution, built in about 1800 and now restored to its former glory, all old stone walls and scuffed wooden floors. Then, there’s the genuine welcome. The team here has a family feel, and guests are soon enveloped — you’ll be called “my love”, fed well, given tips and succour. The owner Teej Down set out to create a destination gastropub that’s a place for locals too, offering unpretentious dining, amazing Welsh produce, well thought-out tipples and cosy rooms. Mission accomplished.
Details B&B doubles from £120; sharing plates from £10 (innatthesticks.com)
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17. New Park Manor, Hampshire
Best family-friendly hotel
We all know that family-friendly really means parent-friendly — something New Park Manor has down to a fine art. Charles II’s favourite hunting lodge, near Brockenhurst, is a magnet for exhausted parents who quickly become repeat guests, returning with children who treat the place like home from the second they arrive. Such liberty is encouraged by the smiling staff, ever ready to dote on little ones of all ages, somehow remembering names and food-related foibles as they dish out the ketchup and ice-cream sprinkles. Stylish rooms are decked out in foresty sage green and autumn-leaf orange with whimsical touches such as mushroom-shaped cushions, chalkboards for scribbling on and a bespoke wallpaper that features toadstools, mice and foxes in Breton tops. Children will love it for its indoor and outdoor pools, superb playground and bedtime cookies, but it’s parents, feeling renewed from a stint in the extensive spa, who will be hardest to shut up about this one — need we say more than “two hours of free daily childcare”?
Details B&B doubles from £130; mains from £20 (luxuryfamilyhotels.co.uk)
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18. The Merry Harriers, Surrey
If you’re looking for a stay that puts personality and peace to the top of the pecking order, then this ancient inn amid the rolling Surrey Hills is the perfect pick. The owners, Alex Winch and Sam Fiddian-Green, bought the pub in November 2023 and have turned the focus to its foodie offering, hiring former MasterChef: The Professionals contestant Freddie Innes — formerly of Ockenden Manor — to head the kitchen, where dishes have a firm focus on making the most of the area’s rich natural larder. The pub is just as much of a hit with locals as it is with guests — though those who stay the night can retire to contemporary garden rooms and cosy shepherd’s huts with log-burners. Also made welcome are pooches with a bed and bowl — and there’s even a hitching rail for those who choose to arrive by horseback.
Details B&B doubles from £129; mains from £18 (merryharriers.com)
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19. The Rose, Kent
Best boutique hotel
The Rose is at the vanguard of the revival of the Kent coast. Until 2018, Deal didn’t make it onto holidaymakers’ radar, but then Alex Bagner, a former senior editor at the design bible Wallpaper*, and her husband, Chris Hicks, scion of a Kent brewing dynasty, transformed one of his family’s spit-and-sawdust boozers into a style hound’s hangout and Deal became trendy almost overnight. There’s been no seven-year hitch here — the Rose remains a resounding star of the south coast. Locals and visitors alike enjoy beer, cocktails and sensational gastropub menus in the various nooks and crannies of its theatrical wraparound bar. The eight bedrooms — accessed up a creaky staircase hidden behind a thick velvet curtain in the bar — have been blasted with colours as vibrant as a stick of rock, perfect for a cheeky seaside break. Complimentary brandy nightcaps help you raise a glass to this holiday hotspot.
Details Room-only doubles from £110; mains from £19 (therosedeal.com)
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20. No 124 by GuestHouse, Brighton
Funky art by local artists (everything from wool pieces to wall quilts and stained-glass installations), vintage furniture finds, a vinyl library and lots of games and books to browse make this 32-room hotel on Brighton’s seafront a masterclass in maximalist design. The hotel traverses four townhouses — both Regency and Victorian — with views out across the English Channel and the atmospheric ruined West Pier. There’s lots of gorgeous natural light in the daytime. Touches of beach whimsy are particularly apt and much better than the usual stripy cushions — a mini helter-skelter with working lights on the bar, a replica sailing boat on the lounge’s mantelpiece. Rooms tone down the OTT vibe but still have plenty of character — the largest suite comes with its own private street entrance and an alfresco hot tub for two. There’s a great restaurant with seafood and steaks, and spa treatment rooms are set to open in April 2025. GuestHouse, an independent group run by three brothers has three other properties, all in great long weekend spots: York, Bath and Margate.
Details B&B doubles from £115; mains from £18 (guesthousehotels.co.uk)
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21. The Milner York
There are conveniently located hotels, and then there’s the Milner. This imposing, yellow-brick institution can be accessed via platform three at York railway station, just outside the medieval city walls, and makes a glamorous base for a weekend away. Formerly the Principal, the Milner relaunched in October 2024, with additions including air conditioning in all 155 of the comfortable, reasonably priced rooms, plus a revamped restaurant and bar. The finest features, however, date to 1878. You’d struggle to find a staircase grander than the mirror-lined iron structure that bisects the hotel. And the high-ceilinged Garden Room, where an indulgent, chocolate-themed afternoon tea is served, offers stonking views of York Minster cathedral. Rooms have a sleeker, brighter feel than the decor in the common areas, which is still quite traditional with chesterfield sofas and herringbone wooden flooring. The city centre is a ten-minute pootle away for when you want to explore.
Details Room-only doubles from £100; mains from £14 (themilneryork.com)
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22. Jöro at Oughtibridge Mill, Sheffield
Jöro may be a Michelin-noted, tasting-menu-only restaurant with rooms, but it’s not all fancy, napkin-flapping fine dining. Rather, it’s a case of come-as-you-are for dazzling but fun Asian-Nordic cooking served from an open kitchen in a 19th-century former paper mill. It’s owned by the chef Luke French (a Great British Menu regional winner who draws influence from his time at the experimental Fat Duck and Asian street food discovered on his travels) and his wife, Stacey Sherwood-French. They began their adventures in a converted shipping container in Sheffield’s hip Kelham Island neighbourhood and have brought a similar sense of industrial cool here to the city’s rugged Don Valley outskirts, adding seven Scandi-sleek bedrooms. It’s a small, friendly team with check-in at the bar or via a code-accessed key safe. As you dine, the breakfast fairies stock your fridge and line a chunky chopping board with puffed grain granola, yoghurt, smoked salmon, crème fraîche, Iberico ham, and cheese, plus wicked homemade treacle bread and muffins to enjoy decadently in bed the following morning. Bring your hiking boots; the Peak District is just over the hill.
Details B&B doubles from £100; tasting menus from £45pp (jororestaurant.co.uk)
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• Read our guide to the Peak District
23. The Queens, Leeds
When the Queens opened in 1937 — with her art deco lines, pearly-grey stone façade, polished wood and mirrored interiors — she was the place to stay. Fast-forward several decades and an expensive buff and shine has brought her zipping into the 21st century without losing an iota of old-world glamour. Big, bold and stately, the hotel holds court over the centre of Leeds like the grande dame she was intended to be. With sleek, airy bedrooms (with a calm colour palette of soft grey, airforce-blue and silver plus good lighting), a sophisticated cocktail bar and sultry circular restaurant, it’s an ideal base for hitting the city’s cultural hotspots, boutique shops and great places to eat.
Details B&B doubles from £95; mains from £16 (thequeensleeds.co.uk)
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24. The White Horse, Norfolk
This contemporary stay with its marshland views is the ideal jumping-off point for exploring the glorious north Norfolk coast. Those of you that have ever driven along the A149 between Hunstanton and Wells-next-the-Sea will have passed it. Coming from the west, you’ll see that white horse’s face on the pub sign. From the east, you see its backside. It’s the first clue of the sense of humour in a north Norfolk stalwart where the service is as good as the views. Formerly a fishermen’s boozer called the Lobster Pot, it went upmarket in 1996 when it became the White Horse, developing a reputation for championing local produce long before such provisioning became fashionable. As London money flooded the coast, the White Horse could have gone full-on Chelsea-on-Sea, but thankfully it never forgot that despite the 15 modern rooms and the restaurant, first and foremost it’s a village pub, with the friendly, informal service of your local. So no one will judge you if you order a pint of the Brancaster-brewed Oystercatcher to go with your chilled XO Brancaster mussels.
Details B&B doubles from £150; mains from £16 (whitehorsebrancaster.co.uk)
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25. The Gin Trap Inn, Norfolk
The name says much about the slant of this cracking period property that’s within striking distance of north Norfolk’s wild, pine-thicketed beaches and RSPB nature reserves. The Times’ 2024 Best Places To Stay pubs with rooms category winner is a recent addition to Chestnut, East Anglia’s discerning boutique hospitality group. With 13 characterful bedrooms and suites (including three self-catering cottages), the Gin Trap is a heritage triumph of original beams and wonky floors framing cosy nooks and warming fires. The generous rooms are packed with heritage features — thick stone walls, shuttered inset windows and acres of beams — alongside handsome brass bedsteads and antique furniture mixed with quirky elements such as stag-head lamps. The vibe is convivial, but service is efficient and the restaurant’s menu is a roll call of local farmers, fishermen and producers. And of course there’s gin. Masses of it.
Details B&B doubles from £140 (two-night minimum for cottages; for rooms and suites Friday and Saturday must be booked together); mains from £20 (thegintrapinn.co.uk)
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26. The Maltings, Norfolk
No judgement to those who might consider cool digs in East Anglia an oxymoron. The fashionable stretch of the Norfolk coast begins at Thornham and ends at Cley next the Sea. The unfashionable bit — and they’re grateful for that — starts at Sheringham and goes round to Great Yarmouth. Between the two lies Weybourne. The former PM John Major has a second home there so this seaside village with its quiet beach should be in the unfashionable camp, but the 2024 opening of stylish restaurant with rooms the Maltings has rather changed the Weybourne identity. What on earth will the neighbours say? Pick one of the three upstairs rooms in the stables of this 16th-century granary if you want a glimpse of the sea, and don’t miss the Sunday roast — it’s the toast of the coast for its focus on local produce.
Details B&B doubles from £135; mains from £19 (themaltingsweybourne.com)
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27. The Swan at Lavenham, Suffolk
The Swan could easily be etched on a Disney moodboard, had it been tasked with designing an English country inn. Consider it an implausibly perfect Tudor pub, in an impeccable Tudor town. While the best parts of the original 1425 build have remained across the 45-room property — limewashed walls are latticed with wonky beams and slightly drunken leaded windows lit by medieval lanterns — it’s had plenty of welcome additions over the years. Guests can go for dips in a bubbling vitality pool and aromatic steam room at the Weavers’ House Spa, tuck into afternoon teas by crackling fires and sip beers from a historic three-and-a-half-pint glass boot. All in all, it’s the perfect fit for Lavenham, a magical wool town that seems to have been preserved in time.
Details B&B doubles from £140; mains from £27 (theswanatlavenham.co.uk)
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28. The Sun Inn, Bedfordshire
The Sun Inn is proof that great things come in small packages. The 17th-century free house in Felmersham is your quintessential chocolate-box, thatch-roofed pub. It used to be more of a spit-and-sawdust establishment before a belting revamp by two local couples turned it into the beating heart of this pretty, riverside village. The cheerful chef-patron Pete Pestell and his wife Conny deliver a knockout seasonal menu largely sourced from the Sun’s own Wild Berry Farm just minutes away. Buzzing with locals and warm, friendly service, this is the sort of place you might find yourselves sitting between the scrap metal man and a visiting shooting party and all end the evening on first-name terms. The only thing better than having this local at the end of your road? Staying the night in one of the two boutique rooms in the eaves — both are stunners with high-spec finishes. The Great Ouse River — a popular pick for fishing and kayaking — and a 52-acre nature reserve that’s a sanctuary for nesting and migrating birds are both nearby.
Details B&B doubles from £150; mains from £16 (thesunfelmersham.com)
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29. Roslin Beach Hotel, Essex
Miami glamour on the Essex estuary. Yes, you read that right. It might lie on Thorpe Bay, just outside Southend’s city centre, but this off-white clapboard confection brings a touch of Florida fun to the home counties — from palm-print wallpaper and a warm-orange toned dining room to the Barbie-pink spa and vibes as bouncy as its patrons’ blow-dries. A seafront, boutique stay, it’s also one of Essex’s most popular hangouts for brunch, afternoon tea, dinner and cocktails at all hours in between. Some of the 37 bedrooms, in shades of blue and green, have lovely views across the estuary towards the Isle of Sheppey in Kent — although they play second fiddle to the buzzy bar and restaurant where seafood takes centre stage.
Details B&B doubles from £130; mains from £23 (roslinhotel.com)
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30. The Cuan, Co Down
Northern Ireland hotel of the year
When the owners got the keys to old-fashioned boozer the Cuan in March 2020, the plan was to see what was working and what needed changing. The pandemic put the blockers on that, so they ploughed on with a £1 million makeover and created one of Northern Ireland’s best-kept secrets. Nine calming, nature-inspired bedrooms are the mastery of Garuda Design (also behind the interiors of Andy Murray’s Cromlix hotel), and the food is spectacular: hearty pub classics elevated with ingredients from nature’s larder served in a space with an art deco New York bar feel about it. The biggest pull is the location, in stone-skimming distance of serene Strangford Lough (where dolphins, whales and basking sharks come to play) and Castle Ward, aka Winterfell, where scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed in the grounds. All in all, it’s a place that feels on the cusp of its own big silver-screen moment; somewhere to prioritise going now, while it’s just as magical as it is under the radar. Let’s hope Jon Snow kept quiet about it too.
Details B&B doubles from £139; mains from £15 (thecuan.com)
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31. The Ebrington Hotel, Londonderry
You’ll find Ebrington Hotel at the eastern end of Londonderry’s Peace Bridge — a winding cycle and pedestrian route over the River Foyle that connects the west side of the city to the Waterside district. This was once the site of a vast barracks, used by the military from the 1800s until the 2000s. But since the hotel opened in 2023, the only battalions are holidaymakers heading to the hotel’s resort-like facilities, including a bijou spa, excellent fine-dining restaurant and a casual pub. A modernist new-build section in gunmetal grey sympathetically slots in between historic buildings, including the original clocktower with rooms channelling mid-century vibes throughout. Ebrington is something beyond a city centre boutique — a mark of this area’s renaissance, reconciliation and the pure joy of a warm Northern Irish welcome.
Details B&B doubles from £132; mains from £16 (theebringtonhotel.com)
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32. Ruby Stella, Clerkenwell
In a city known for its luxury hotels, finding an affordable hotel that has soul and style in spades has often felt like the stuff of legends. So Ruby Stella, from the 20-strong budget-friendly Ruby Hotels group and steps away from Exmouth Market, made a very welcome addition to Clerkenwell when it opened in November 2024 for just that reason. Most magnetic is the sexy, industrial-themed bar, which hints at the area’s bookbinding heritage with piles of leather-bound tomes, embossing tools and heavy presses alongside mismatched jewel-toned sofas tucked into private corners. Upstairs are small but personality-packed rooms with Marshall amps, signature Ruby Care shower gels designed to help you wake up or wind down and, dangling above the giant beds, ink pots and quills to remind guests of Clerkenwell’s most famous former resident, Charles Dickens. No doubt the Artful Dodger would want to pocket it all.
Details B&B doubles from £130; mains from £11 (ruby-hotels.com)
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33. The Buxton, Aldgate
It’s not easy to find a hotel restaurant with a genuinely fun, local vibe. So props to the Buxton, at the southern end of London’s Brick Lane, for setting a shining example. A sister property to the Culpeper, a couple of blocks away on Commercial Street, this buzzy bistro with rooms draws a young crowd thanks to its small-plates menu (all hearty meat dishes and homemade breads and butters), disco soundtrack, and mid-century-style marble bar and furnishings. The 15 brilliant-value rooms are compact but stylish, with whitewashed walls and a good stash of coffee table books to pore over. It’s an ideal crash pad for foodies wanting to sample east London’s edge — without the big price tag.
Details B&B doubles from £99; small plates from £6 (thebuxton.co.uk)
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Do you have any favourite UK hotels that won’t break the bank? Share your suggestions in the comments
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