The best boutique hotels in Northumberland
An insider's guide to the top boutique hotels in Northumberland, featuring the best places to stay for plush décor, historic buildings, beautiful landscapes, quirky features and excellent food, in locations including Alnwick, Newton, Otterburn and near to Hadrian's Wall.
The perfectly symmetrical, stone-built, early 18th-century building sits on Alnwick's main thoroughfare. Cute and neat, inside it’s been given a pared-down, urban feel rather than a cottagey look — all pale greys, milky coffees and solid wood doors with little unnecessary decoration other than a huge, fun mirror on the stairs. Most of its seven rooms tend towards the cosy apart from the larger, first-floor, front rooms with their bold splashes of red. One rear room has a tiny, private decking area.
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A lord-of-the-manor building that oozes atmosphere at every stone-flagged turn. The original fabric of the building – the Abbot’s lodging of a 12th-century priory – has been blended with a 21st-century country-house aesthetic: flagged floors, exposed stone and vast fireplaces mix with pale-painted floorboards, tartan cushions and modern ironwork candelabras. It’s big yet cosy, with quirky corners and unexpected flights of stairs. Bedrooms feature a light, modern but relaxed country look: smudgy colours, heathery throws, thick curtains plus a sprinkling of antiques mixed with clean-lined custom-made furniture.
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A modern country house hotel, done with a light and practical touch. Colours are Farrow and Ball, soft furnishings are heathery or tartan and well-worn antiques are dotted around with a restrained hand. The 15 rooms continue the theme with smudgy-green and mushroom colours, leafy-patterned wallpapers, linen-covered sofas and armchairs, and beds blissfully free of the usual cushion-mountain. Contemporary local art hangs on the walls and there are fires for chillier days. Piles of Country Life and maps of the local salmon beats remind that this is shootin' and fishin' country.
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This modest-looking pub, with its pale-washed exterior, dormer windows and two large conservatory-style windows, has an unexpectedly bold and eclectic interior perhaps best described as ‘bohemian chalet’. Low timbered ceilings, timbered or exposed-stone walls, and stone-flagged or stripped-wood floors form the background for scrubbed wooden tables, mis-matched chairs and brown suede banquettes. Red lampshades, flashes of crimson velvet and over-sized floral lampshades add a hint of the bordello.
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A stylish yet relaxed country pub with a handful of classy rooms, the Duke of Wellington is a smart option in the tiny hamlet of Newton. The seven bedrooms are stylish yet inviting with a softly played Northumbrian countryside theme – perhaps fishing, hunting, birds or horses – reflected in handsome feature wallpapers, original paintings and prints, and Farrow and Ball colours. Maps showing walks from the pub are available while Hadrian’s Wall walkers on the Wallsend-Housesteads section can be collected and dropped off for no charge.
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This handsome village inn, primarily a food destination, has six spacious boutique rooms, each with a deft modern touch and a dollop of whimsy: antique wardrobes mix with faux-fur throws; Bergère sofas with vintage angle-poise lamps, while battered trunks stand in for bedside tables. One room has a jokey frieze of owls peering down at the bed, another a feature wallpaper of Arcadian fishing scenes; two have egg-shaped baths in the bedrooms. All come furnished with thick curtains, heathery colours and tartan blankets.
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The style at this late-Georgian Alnwick hotels is a cross between a hunting lodge and a gentleman’s club: dark-wood floors, teal-blue and grey walls, and a mix of battered Chesterfields and plaid-upholstered high-stools and armchairs. Botanical prints and hunting scenes keep a rustic feel while artfully arranged collections of old books and clocks give a relaxed, clubby vibe. The seven rooms, spread over the first and second floors, have a simple, contemporary-country style with muted walls and carpets, plaid cushions and headboards, and wool bed throws.
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This country inn in the tiny village of Otterburn offers fun and sexy bedrooms that combine rustic-chic and Parisian boudoir styles. The 25 unashamedly flirty rooms have been designed for fun and indulgence. Carpets are thick and soft, walls are dark and rich, ceilings often open-timbers while pops of jewel-bright colours are found in velvet curtains and throws. Furniture is a mix of vintage, rustic and the exotic; perhaps a Baroque mirror, 1950s cocktail trolley, carved French bed or purple and gilt wardrobe. Top-level rooms might include a gold-coloured slipper-bath, fake carved-stone wall or a bathroom behind a wardrobe door.