Travel Blog – Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

All the aviation-avoiding adventures of the last week have made us fearful of flying, afraid that we too will get caught out, stranded abroad with only sheep for company. So, here in the UK, we’re turning our attentions a little closer to home…

Why this week? There’s no stopping us getting to Northamptonshire and so to Northamptonshire we will go. Trains, cars, hovercrafts: fine. Just no planes, please.

Our favourite bits Waterside Oundle Mill has looked out to bobbing boats and breezy reeds for over 300 years, but it’s all mod cons inside – Missoni bathrobes and Bose sound systems for a start. We love the aged oak beams, plush velvet furnishings and exposed stone walls. The Lucom room is a split-level timber-framed cabin on the rooftop with 180˚ views downstream. There are two restaurants to choose from – Upstairs, for formal Modern European, and Downstairs, for less formal gastropub far. Head chef and GM, Jeremy Medley, is more than happy to share the secret of his fish marinade (the same one that Nobu use for their black cod).

Mr & Mrs Smith say ‘There’s been a flour mill here on the banks of the River Nene, next to the Upper Barnwell Lock, since Saxon times, with the current limestone-built building dating back to the 17th century. Oundle Mill has been a restaurant since the Sixties, reopening under new ownership in August 2008 after a three-year refurb. For such a tall building it is slightly surprising to discover that this hip hotel has only two bedrooms: now that is boutique. The first two floors are given over to dining and an open kitchen, so it’s more restaurant with rooms than traditional guesthouse. Both bedrooms are on the top floor, the biggest of which, the Mill room, has double-storey beamed ceilings, huge velvet bed base, and a double-ended Castello stone bath bedside under its eaves. We are staying in the much smaller Lucom room, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in character.

A small timber cabin jutting out from the top of the stone building, with tiny casement windows on three sides is in fact our boudoir. The original mill pulleys still hang over the under-lit bed, which itself seems suspended over a deep red carpet. Heavily pregnant Mrs Smith doesn’t quite process how precarious this perch is until I point out Lucom from below. Fortunately vertigo is not one of her pregnancy symptoms. Once in our room, she is swiftly soothed by the Jo Malone toiletries and striped Missoni bathrobes, which she is more than a little tempted to sneak away with, magpie-like. She is in nest-feathering mode after all…’

Read full review of Oundle Mill, Northamptonshire

This entry was posted on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Hotel of the Week, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.