22 discoverbritainmag.comECCENTRIC HOTELSB
ritain is full of beautiful purpose-built hotels,
opened by pioneers like César Ritz and Richard
D’Oyly Carte (of Savoy fame). However, it also
leads the world in converting existing buildings
into hotels. Some of the more eccentric structures
that have been repurposed include prisons, churches,
fortresses, and even whole villages. It seems the British
will convert anything into a hotel.
Take Bailiffcourt, for example. Sitting on the Sussex
coast, it consists of a series of medieval houses, barns and
stone cottages, all reassembled on the private estate of the
wealthy Guinness family. Only the 13th-century chapel is
in its original place. Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron
Moyne, and his wife, Lady Evelyn, intended Bailiffscourt
as a place for roaring parties. She had her bedroom in the
Manor House (now the hotel’s reception) while he had his
in the Thatch House, a reconstructed medieval building
that he shared with their children. An underground
passageway linked the two houses so that Lady Evelyn
could visit her family when she wasn’t entertaining.
Over the years more buildings were added to the
estate by the amateur architect Amyas Phillips, whom
the Moynes had met and befriended when he was running
an antique shop. After Lord Moyne’s assassination in
1944, the Guinness family sold the estate to a German
refugee, Emmy Birrer, who turned it into a 39-room hotel.22 discoverbritainmag.com
B
ritain is full of beautiful purpose-built hotels,
opened by pioneers like César Ritz and Richard
D’Oyly Carte (of Savoy fame). However, it also
leads the world in converting existing buildings
into hotels. Some of the more eccentric structures
that have been repurposed include prisons, churches,
fortresses, and even whole villages. It seems the British
will convert anything into a hotel.
Take Bailiffcourt, for example. Sitting on the Sussex
coast, it consists of a series of medieval houses, barns and
stone cottages, all reassembled on the private estate of the
wealthy Guinness family. Only the 13th-century chapel is
in its original place. Walter Edward Guinness, 1st Baron
Moyne, and his wife, Lady Evelyn, intended Bailiffscourt
as a place for roaring parties. She had her bedroom in the
Manor House (now the hotel’s reception) while he had his
in the Thatch House, a reconstructed medieval building
that he shared with their children. An underground
passageway linked the two houses so that Lady Evelyn
could visit her family when she wasn’t entertaining.
Over the years more buildings were added to the
estate by the amateur architect Amyas Phillips, whom
the Moynes had met and befriended when he was running
an antique shop. After Lord Moyne’s assassination in
1944, the Guinness family sold the estate to a German
refugee, Emmy Birrer, who turned it into a 39-room hotel.