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LINTHWAITE HOUSE HOTEL |
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LAKE DISTRICT, ENGLAND
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It's all too easy to become blasé about stupendous vistas in the Lakes, but the panorama from the sun-trap terrace at Linthwaite House Hotel takes some
beating. It looks over Windermere to the Old Man of Coniston in the south and Helvellyn in the north, with scarcely another building visible. Linthwaite is a privately owned 26-room hotel that occupies a striking half-timbered house, built in 1900. It is set in 14 acres with its own tarn, stocked with trout for fly-fishing but also available to swimmers in summer. There's a croquet lawn and a putting green but no pool or spa. The atmosphere is stylish and informal, the staff highly professional and very friendly. The interiors were designed by Amanda Rosa, best known for her work with the Malmaison chain: eclectic, even a little eccentric, but very attractive, and thoroughly appropriate to the Arts and Crafts country-house aesthetic of the building.
Rooms are furnished with limed, Shaker-style pieces. And every last detail, from the striped chenille fabric on the armchairs to the silvery glass floor- tiles in the bathroom, is pleasing. Linthwaite takes its cooking very seriously, too, and you will eat extremely well: a tian of crab, avocado and tomato for example, followed by pearly cod with exquisite Flookburgh shrimps, wild asparagus and a caper-and-parsley sauce; or an extraordinarily good rillette of shredded duck with chilli and tomato 'jam', followed by outstandingly tender beef fillet with wild mushrooms. 'If there were one word to sum our hotel up it would be "unstuffy",' asserts its brochure. Despite this, there is a dress code (no dinner for those in jeans, T-shirts or trainers.) But on the plus side, it is the only one to have modem points in the bedrooms, to provide daily weather reports (useful in these parts), and to solicit guests' opinions at the end of their stay.
CONTACT
Linthwaite House Hotel, Crook Road, Windermere (015394 88600; www.linthwaite.com). Doubles from £99 B&B, from £124 including dinner. Set menu £42
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