The UK’s 10 best quirky hotels 2023: From lighthouses to train stations, make your next stay a unique one

Plan the perfect overnight stay with these one-of-a-kind digs, says Jane Knight

The Dial House in Norfolk (The Dial House)

Picking the right accommodation for your holiday in the UK is a key part of enjoying your break. While there’s nothing wrong with opting to stay in traditional hotels, if you fancy something different and unique, you might want to explore some quirky hotels for your UK travels.

Whether you’re exploring England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland, Britain has all kinds of unusual accommodation for you to check out during your trip. Plus, staying in a quirky hotel allows you to learn more about the history behind the architecture, and makes for a more interesting experience.

From a former train station to an old watermill, there’s a bunch of intriguing stays for you to choose from across various regions in the UK. With Instagram-worthy interiors and exteriors, why settle for the same old, bog standard rooms, when you can stay in a unique gem? Here, the Good Hotel Guide picks the quirkiest top 10.

Belle Tout Lighthouse

Location: Eastbourne, Sussex

Decommissioned in 1902, Belle Tout lighthouse now has six rooms (Belle Tout Lighthouse)

Climb up to the lantern room in this remote B&B for a 360-degree lookout of the English Channel and the Seven Sisters and South Downs. Decommissioned in 1902, less than a century after it was built, the lighthouse now has six rooms. Only one is in the tower – the atmospheric Keeper’s Loft, with exposed brick, small window and double bed on a mezzanine reached by a ladder. It’s a tight squeeze, though, so if you want more space, plump for the bigger, lighter and brighter five rooms in the adjoining house.

Whichever room you choose, be sure to watch sunrises over Beachy Head Lighthouse and sunsets over the Birling Gap, either from the lounge or the lantern room, with its outdoor walkway. Once darkness falls, take a nightcap up the stairs for a spot of stargazing.

Price: Doubles from £195

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The Dial House

Location: Reepham, Norfolk

Take your pick from the eclectic rooms at The Dial House (The Dial House)

Choose your room according to your favourite part of the world here, from China (a celebration of willow pattern) to Africa (with vaulted beams and slipper bath) to Paris (a garret complete with antiques). Whichever of the eight bedrooms you choose, it will come with a record player and homemade biscuits.

A revolving bookcase reveals a secret dining room, where you can tuck into local produce that tastes all the better for having been cooked over sustainably sourced charcoal (note that the restaurant is closed from Sunday to Tuesday). Part of the hotel is a shop, and there’s even a hairdressers on site. The market town of Reepham is half an hour from the Norfolk coast.

Talland Bay Hotel

Location: Talland, near Looe, Cornwall

The whimsical Talland Bay Hotel has a spectacular coastal setting (Talland Bay Hotel)

It feels a bit as if you’ve fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole at this whimsical hotel with a spectacular coastal setting. Whether you’re sitting inside on a zebra-print sofa looking at a 3D Mickey Mouse on the wall or you’re out in the clifftop garden on a wooden bench with carved budgies, it keeps getting curiouser and curiouser.

While there’s plenty of fun amid the fairy tale, hospitality is taken very seriously here, with slick service and light and airy rooms (bag one with a sea view to really appreciate the setting). Better still, you can take your four-legged friends and explore the South West Coastal Path before returning to a taste-packed meal that’s big on Cornish seafood.

Cross House Lodge, The Star Inn

Location: Harome, Yorkshire

Enjoy Michelin-starred food during your stay (The Star Inn)

The Star Inn is a thatched pub – all flagged floors and low beams – on the edge of the North Yorkshire moors, where you can work up a healthy appetite during the day. And you know the food is going to be good, as the inn is well known for the Michelin-starred meals of chef patron Andrew Pern, who delights in serving the best local food along with some unusual combinations.

What’s less expected are the quirky rooms in farm buildings (Cross House Lodge) across the road – there’s a snooker table in one and a piano in another, should you feel compelled to give a night-time rendition of the Moonlight Sonata.

Price: Doubles from £220, B&B

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No 15 Great Pulteney

Location: Bath

This Grade I-listed beauty is an eccentric delight (No 15)

Step through the doorway of this Grade I-listed building with its traditional Georgian facade and you enter a world of eccentricity. From doll houses and record players to bedroom walls covered in bold murals and artwork, everywhere you look there’s a different curio.

It’s all elegantly stylish and spoiling rather than kitsch. There’s a spa in the basement, part of which was the old coal cellar, and even the smallest of the 40 bedrooms has a larder of complimentary soft drinks and snacks.

Tuddenham Mill

Location: Tuddenham, Suffolk

The 18th-century Tuddenham Mill has 21 rooms, including two hobbit-style huts with a hot tub (Tuddenham Mill)

You can still see the waterwheel in the bar of this 18th-century mill, and the gearing apparatus is on show in the dining room. It’s here, beneath the original beams, that chef patron Lee Bye keeps his nose to the grindstone, cooking imaginative dishes inspired by the Suffolk countryside, such as Holkham estate deer or bream with bouillabaisse. After dinner, retire to one of 21 rooms, many of which feature Italian-designed furniture and a Philippe Starck bath.

Two of the hobbit-style huts in the garden have a terrace with a hot tub, while other bedrooms have access to the millstream, where swans glide in sight of the enormous brick chimney.

The Old Railway Station

Location: Petworth, Sussex

The Old Railway Station’s romantic Pullman carriages (The Old Railway Station)

The romantic Pullman railway carriages – with colonial-style furniture, mahogany fittings and shutters – are just the ticket to take you back to the golden age of travel. Built in 1892 to enable the Prince of Wales at the time to travel to Goodwood Racecourse, the pretty former station is a far cry from London’s Waterloo.

Today, you can take afternoon tea as well as breakfast in the timber-panelled Waiting Room, with its high-vaulted ceiling and polished wood floors. Check in at the original ticket window for either a night in one of the eight Pullman rooms or in the old station master’s house.

Twr y Felin Hotel

Location: St Davids, Pembrokeshire, Wales

Twr y Felin Hotel has its own museum (Marcus Oleniuk)

Take one Georgian windmill on the edge of Britain’s smallest city, add a contemporary art museum, and you have what is possibly Wales’s most unique place to stay.

Among the 100 original art works on display are Marcus Oleniuk’s photographs of St Davids peninsula – views of the real thing can be seen from the observatory above the showpiece Tower Suite.

The stylish, contemporary bedrooms in the mill and Oriel Wing have a chocolate-and-cream palette, some with a terrace or Juliet balcony. While the restaurant has been designed to reflect the simplicity of the former mill, there’s nothing plain about the food, from the charred mackerel with elderflower and gooseberry to the stone bass with kohlrabi.

The Ceilidh Place

Location: Ullapool, Scotland

The Ceilidh Place has a bunkhouse for those on a budget (Ceilidh Place)

There may be only 13 rooms at this hotel in a fishing village on Loch Broom, but there’s plenty of activity – it has its own bookshop, coffee shop and events space, as well as the usual bar and restaurant. The simply decorated bedrooms have a Roberts radio and books but no television, and there’s a bunkhouse across the car park for those travelling on a budget.

Make yourself free coffee and tea in the upstairs lounge, with its library and piano, then move on to the bistro-style restaurant, which also serves kippers for breakfast in the morning.

Price: Doubles from £70

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Hazlitt’s

Location: London

The former home of English essayist William Hazlitt (Hazlitt’s)

If it’s not surprising enough to find a slice of literary history just two minutes from Oxford Street, this former home of English essayist William Hazlitt has plenty of unexpected treats within. The Duke of Monmouth duplex suite has a courtyard garden with a sliding glass roof, while a wall panel in the Teresa Cornelys junior suite springs open to reveal a dressing table.

The hotel creaks with authenticity, with ornate carved beds, rich fabrics and even a loo concealed in a Jacobean-style love seat. There’s a panelled library with a real fire and an honesty library, and Soho is right on the doorstep.

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