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- Old Walls self catering cottage bedroom
- English Rose bathroom
- Divine Garden Room
- The Tallet Cottage exterior
- Old Walls self catering cottage
- Hotel exterior
- Thyme House dining room
- Old Wall self catering cottage conservatory
- Old Walls self catering cottage lounge
- English Rose bedroom
- Angelica bathroom
- Divine Double/Twin
- Thyme House walled garden
- Swimming pool
- Elegant Double/Twin
Thyme
Southrop, United Kingdom
Important Announcements
<b>IHG One Rewards members can earn & redeem points at Mr & Mrs Smith hotels.</b>
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This is an exclusive IHG One Rewards collaboration, however because these are not IHG branded hotels, other member benefits will not be available. Please contact the hotel prior to arrival in order to make the most of your stay.
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PROPERTY FEATURES
The Premises
A cosy local pub, and serenely grazing livestock: Thyme boutique hotel – 17th-century cottages and refined rooms dotted throughout Southrop Manor’s 150-acre estate – encapsulates a William Blake-penned vision that’s lured London’s fashion set (a certain supermodel proved its pull by holding her nuptials nearby). With an on-site farm and fruitful kitchen garden, the hotel’s cookery school is revered among foodies, too.
SMITH EXTRA
Compliments of the House
A half-bottle of local Nyetimber English sparkling wine in your room
View Your Escape
At the Hotel
CHECK-OUT: 11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in: 4pm.
Rates include the à la carte breakfast.
FACILITIES
Cookery School, spa, farm and kitchen gardens, the Baa for botanical cocktails and afternoon teas, tennis courts, petanque pitch, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV and DVD player, free bottled water, Nespresso coffee machine, kettle and a selection of teas, Bertioli Beauty bath products and a minibar stocked with Cotswold Gin, Cotswold Whiskey and Sapling Vodka. Tallet and Old Walls cottages have a wood-burning stove.
PACKING TIPS
Wellies and a casual ensemble for rambles through the farm. Clear a little space in your suitcase for Thyme’s generous home-made treats, including little bottles of elderflower cordial or jars of jam.
CHILDREN
Over-12s only in the hotel; they'll need a separate room too. Younger children can only stay in Old Walls cottage. Kids can join for lunch in the Ox Barn restaurant and the Swan has a children’s menu (staff will warm baby food too).
ECO-FRIENDLY
With few exceptions, everything on your plate is grown or farmed on site. Thyme has a two-acre kitchen garden for herbs and vegetables; eggs come from the resident hens, quail and geese, and rare-breed sheep are reared in the grounds. The hotel recycles and composts waste, heating comes from a wood-pellet-fuelled boiler or a ground-source heat pump (in the Tithe Barn and cookery school). Thyme has received the highest rating from the Sustainable Restaurant Association and is working towards the eradication of single-use plastics.
SPA
Head to Meadow Spa for a little, or a lot of, pampering. In partnership with Aurelia Probiotic Skincare, Thyme have developed several exclusive therapies that'll leave you feeling rejuvenated and your skin glowing. Try Aurelia’s Natural Face Lift which uses hypnotic deep muscle rolling and pressure point massage to relieve wrinkle-causing tension, stimulate collagen and boost circulation to help tone the skin. For head to toe indulgence, try the holistic body and face ritual. The spa also offers treatments exclusively for men. After your pampering session, refresh with a stop at the spa's Greenhouse Water Bar.
ALSO
Celeb gardener Bunny Guinness’s Olive Garden is a lovely lounging spot too.
USEFUL INFORMATION
Well-behaved dogs are welcome to stay in a number of the hotel's rooms or cottages (£50 a night for one; £75 a night for two dogs). The hotel will also provide a basket, water and food bowel, a towel and a paw cleaner free of charge. Please note that the hotel requests all dogs be kept off the furniture. Dogs must also be kept on leads around the estate, and they're welcome to join you in the Baa Bar; the Swan; the Tithe Barn exhibition space, and at the boutique.
Rooms
Set under beamed eaves, Nepeta is decorated in an earthy palette; it's dotted with antiques from Tetbury, but in such a way that it feels like you could be settled in amid your own collection. You can play chess in the freestanding bath tub, or stargaze through the shower's skylight as you scrub. If you desire rustic seclusion, check in to Tallet, a pretty stone cottage in Thyme's courtyard with a log burner to warm winter nights and an alfresco dining area for sunny afternoons.
Food & Drink
Unforgettable Features
You’ll have two to choose from: the Ox Barn and the Swan at Southrop. Chef Charlie Hibbert curates the farm-based and plant-inspired menu at the Ox Barn, where signature dishes include lemon sole and herbs, roast Southrop lamb with salsa verde, roast pork with broad beans and fresh madeleines. Take your pick of the à la carte options, or opt for the set menu and wine-pairing. Brunches of fluffy eggs, salt cod cakes and berry-topped pancakes are served at the Ox Barn too. Despite an influx of A-listers, the Swan at Southrop has stayed true to its country-pub roots, championing localism (ingredients’ ancestry is traced on the menu) and dishing up hearty portions. Chef Matthew Wardman rewrites the menu each week – sometimes daily – but you’ll always find mod Brit light bites and pub classics throughout the day, and Norman-influenced fare at mealtimes. Sunday lunch remains sacrosanct: slabs of sirloin and estate-reared lamb are served with traditional trimmings, but be sure to nab a table ahead of time.
Liquid Bliss
The Baa (see what they did there…) has a cocktail list with culinary clout: damsons from the garden are muddled into the cosmopolitan, home-made marmalade is swirled into Moscow mules and garden herbs are sprinkled into whisky sours. Brit spirits and fine wines from home and abroad are served too. By day, pop in for a coffee, tea or herbal infusion, and try the excellent home-made cakes: honey and quince cake (made with home-grown ingredients), blueberry and lavender friands, and clementine and
Experience the Extraordinary
Southrop’s estate has topiary-studded gardens, wildflower-strewn meadows and a farm. Pull on your wellies and start walking, stopping to greet the resident pigs, sheep, geese, pheasants and hens. Then stroll by the River Leach – in early summer, you may see swans with their cygnets. Learn how to forage; cook a globetrotting range of dishes; and perfect your breads, pasta and pastries at Thyme’s superb cookery school. Classes are two-to-six hours in length. Pop to Cirencester (about an hour's drive away) on Friday to catch the weekly market and pick up some local produce to take home. Artist William Morris's country escape Kelmscott Manor is a 20-minute drive away. The house is filled with the artist's personal effects and lavish furnishings from the manor's co-owner, Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. From April to August royals and enthusiasts hoof it to the fixtures at Beaufort and Cirencester Park polo clubs. Wills, Kate and Harry have been known to attend matches, and if you’re a dab hand with a mallet, temporary membership for 15 chukkas is £250 at Beaufort, and one-to-one tuition or two-day intensive courses are offered at Cirencester. Give the hotel two days’ notice and they can fill a picnic basket with sandwiches, cakes and other goodies to take with you. Unesco-listed Blenheim Palace, the 18th-century home of the first Duke of Marlborough and Churchill’s birthplace, is a sprawling colonnaded confection of a residence atop Capability Browns’ grounds. Marvel at the palace’s grandeur, then pop into the butterfly house and solve the hedge maze. Touring the Cotswolds’ teeny villages is a must: their quintessentially British charm is rendered in golden-hued stone, intertwined with flowers, petite shops and country pubs. Bibury is perhaps the area’s most famous for good looks, Bourton-on-the-Water is known as the Little Venice of the Cotswolds, Broadway lies in a vale of the Worcestershire Hills, and Chippings Camden, Norton and Sodbury are home to gilded historic marvels.
Transportation
Thyme’s cottages repose amid trim and tidy grounds in classic Cotswolds’ countryside, on Southrop Manor’s estate. Cheltenham’s Regency refinement is a 40-minute drive away, and many of the area’s prettiest villages are within 20 minutes' drive.
Planes
Bristol Airport, where flights arrive from major European destinations and North Africa, is a 90-minute drive away on the M4. International hub Heathrow, around 90 miles east, is a 90-minute drive; London Gatwick is around two hours by car. The hotel can arrange transfers from London airports from £150 for a one-way trip.
Trains
Swindon station, a 40-minute drive away, is the closest. Direct trains arrive in around an hour from London Paddington, Cardiff, Bristol, and Oxford. One-way transfers are available from £40, and chauffeur-driven Mercedes are available on request.
Automobiles
Thyme can easily be reached via the M40 and A40, or the M4 and A420. If driving from London, it's possible to stop off at Oxford along the way, via the A40. At Burford, turn onto the A361 to Lechdale; Southrop’s four-and-a-half miles down the road. On-site parking is free.
Other
Chopper in to get a bird’s-eye view of the Cotswolds and make quite the entrance. A £150 landing fee is required and helicopter operators need to contact the hotel and RAF Brize Norton in advance.
Location
Thyme Southrop Manor Estate Southrop, GL7 3NXUnited Kingdom
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