discoverbritainmag.com 23ECCENTRIC HOTELSVICTORIA GIBBS/RICHARD DOWNER PHOTOGRAPHY/MARK LANGRIDGEToday you could be forgiven for thinking that
Bailiffscourt is the remains of a medieval Sussex village,
but it’s a very convincing fake. The fact that Lord Moyne
bought up all the surrounding shoreline to make sure
modern buildings did not undermine the integrity of
his historical folly means that Bailiffscourt represents
a notable gap in the Brighton to Bognor Regis coastline.
Further west on England’s south coast lies Burgh Island,
which is cut off from the rest of Devon at high tide. After
the First World War, film director Archibald Nettlefold
built a house there, but he became so tired of his friends
treating it like a hotel that he turned it into one in 1929.
Author Dame Agatha Christie and playwright Sir Noël
Coward came to stay, as did the Duchess of Windsor ➤who – according to hotel legend –
occupied the Beach House before
her marriage to Edward VIII.
Like so many British hotels,
Burgh Island was commandeered
during the Second World War and
didn’t recover from the experience
for decades. It was used as a ruined,
Xanadu-like location in the 1965
John Boorman film Catch Us If
You Can. When restoration began
in 1986, the building became more
truly Art Deco than ever before,
with statuettes of athletic women
on every floor; they hold up light
fittings, they are draped round
picture frames, they’re even
supporting the bar.
The bedrooms are indebted to
Art Deco and named after glamorous
figures from the 1930s, such as pilot
Amy Johnson, singer Josephine
Baker and Major “Fruity” Metcalfe, who was aide de
camp to Edward VIII. What makes Burgh Island truly
unique, however, is its dress code. If you wish to dine
in the ballroom, the requirement is strictly black tie.
Most guests play up to this gorgeous charade as there
is a dance band at the weekend and a pianist midweek.
The sight of so many hotel guests dancing as if they are
extras in an Agatha Christie murder mystery proves that
Burgh Island not only looks eccentric, it lives eccentric.
As the hotel itself claims, it is impossible to be overdressed
here. By complete contrast Oxford’s Malmaison is a
former prison that was converted into a 95-bed hotel
after it ceased being a place of incarceration 24 years
ago. The Malmaison company has built a brand out ofClockwise from
top left: The
Baylies room
at Bailiffscourt
Hotel and Spa;
the sea tractor
en route to Burgh
Island Hotel;
decking leading
out to the Mermaid
Pool at Burgh
Island; Bailiffscourtdiscoverbritainmag.com 23ECCENTRIC HOTELSVICTORIA GIBBS/RICHARD DOWNER PHOTOGRAPHY/MARK LANGRIDGE
Today you could be forgiven for thinking that
Bailiffscourt is the remains of a medieval Sussex village,
but it’s a very convincing fake. The fact that Lord Moyne
bought up all the surrounding shoreline to make sure
modern buildings did not undermine the integrity of
his historical folly means that Bailiffscourt represents
a notable gap in the Brighton to Bognor Regis coastline.
Further west on England’s south coast lies Burgh Island,
which is cut off from the rest of Devon at high tide. After
the First World War, film director Archibald Nettlefold
built a house there, but he became so tired of his friends
treating it like a hotel that he turned it into one in 1929.
Author Dame Agatha Christie and playwright Sir Noël
Coward came to stay, as did the Duchess of Windsor ➤who – according to hotel legend –
occupied the Beach House before
her marriage to Edward VIII.
Like so many British hotels,
Burgh Island was commandeered
during the Second World War and
didn’t recover from the experience
for decades. It was used as a ruined,
Xanadu-like location in the 1965
John Boorman film Catch Us If
You Can. When restoration began
in 1986, the building became more
truly Art Deco than ever before,
with statuettes of athletic women
on every floor; they hold up light
fittings, they are draped round
picture frames, they’re even
supporting the bar.
The bedrooms are indebted to
Art Deco and named after glamorous
figures from the 1930s, such as pilot
Amy Johnson, singer Josephine
Baker and Major “Fruity” Metcalfe, who was aide de
camp to Edward VIII. What makes Burgh Island truly
unique, however, is its dress code. If you wish to dine
in the ballroom, the requirement is strictly black tie.
Most guests play up to this gorgeous charade as there
is a dance band at the weekend and a pianist midweek.
The sight of so many hotel guests dancing as if they are
extras in an Agatha Christie murder mystery proves that
Burgh Island not only looks eccentric, it lives eccentric.
As the hotel itself claims, it is impossible to be overdressed
here. By complete contrast Oxford’s Malmaison is a
former prison that was converted into a 95-bed hotel
after it ceased being a place of incarceration 24 years
ago. The Malmaison company has built a brand out ofClockwise from
top left: The
Baylies room
at Bailiffscourt
Hotel and Spa;
the sea tractor
en route to Burgh
Island Hotel;
decking leading
out to the Mermaid
Pool at Burgh
Island; Bailiffscourt