A few years ago, my husband and I were walking along the Dorset coast when we decided we needed to pause. We’d already been going for three hours and Lulworth Cove was still two hours ahead of us. “No problem,” said a stranger, appearing out of the mist. “You can go straight down the cliff, and walk back along the shore. It’s a historic smugglers’ path. It featured in Moonfleet, the children’s novel by J Meade Falkner.” We were intrigued. We bought the novel — a tale of nautical shenanigans along the lines of Treasure Island — and we loved it. We also loved the idea that we had walked down a path that featured in it. When we found out that the house that inspired it was now a hotel, our excitement went through the roof.
There’s an undeniable thrill to walking in a favourite author’s footsteps, particularly when those footsteps lead to a luxury hotel. Not only do you get to see where the author set a particular story or sat to write it, but where they ate, drank, slept or got arrested. You also get to spend a glamorous night or two in a place they loved. Here we present ten of the best literary hotels in Britain.
1. The Cadogan, London — Oscar Wilde
The flamboyant Irish playwright and poet couldn’t resist a luxury hotel — he is linked to almost as many as Churchill. This 54-room Belmond property in Chelsea holds the distinction of being the unlikely place of his arrest, on April 6, 1895, for gross indecency, in a scene later commemorated by John Betjeman (“Mr. Woilde, we ‘ave come for tew take yew / Where felons and criminals dwell / We must ask yew tew leave with us quietly / For this is the Cadogan Hotel.”). His room — 118, now the Oscar Suite — has a striking marble bathroom with a contemporary oval tub and a mini-library curated by John Sandoe.
Doubles from £650 B&B, Oscar Suite from £4,600 B&B (belmond.com)
2. Browns Hotel, London — Rudyard Kipling
This 115-room Mayfair hotel was founded in 1837 by Byron’s butler and has hosted a roll call of literary greats, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Stephen King. Its top suite, however, honours Kipling, who began his honeymoon (with his American wife, Caroline Balestier) at the hotel in 1892 and is thought to have written part of The Jungle Book here. A white statue of a monkey hangs outside the two-bedroom suite, which has hand-painted Lewis & Wood wallpaper and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Albemarle Street. A bespoke tour of Peter Harrington Rare Books can be included in a stay.
Doubles from £775 B&B, Kipling Suite from £5,000 B&B (roccofortehotels.com)
3. The Dorchester, London — Ian Fleming
The creator of 007 is perhaps more readily associated with Goldeneye, his clifftop estate in Jamaica. But he was a regular at the Dorchester from the 1940s, when he was working for naval intelligence, until his death in 1964. When it was renovated in 2022, the 241-room hotel on Park Lane invited Martin Brudnizki to design the Vesper Bar, named after Bond’s beguiling love interest in Casino Royale. Its signature cocktail, the Vesper Martini, was dreamt up by Fleming himself in the 1953 novel and resurfaced in the 2006 movie — with gin, vodka, Kina Lillet and a slice of lemon peel.
Doubles from £900 room only (dorchestercollection.com)
4. Henrys Townhouse, London — Jane Austen
From 1801 to 1804 this grade II listed Georgian townhouse in Marylebone was the home of Austen’s favourite brother Henry and his “outlandish” wife, Eliza (thought to have been the inspiration for Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park). Now part of the same collection as Temple Guiting in the Cotswolds, it has six sumptuous Regency bedrooms designed by Russell Sage Studio and a snug styled as a vintage train carriage where visitors can put on gloves and handle illustrated first editions of Austen’s novels. It’s a 90-minute drive from the author’s cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, which is one of many properties this year celebrating the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth.
Doubles from £595 B&B (henrystownhouse.co.uk)
5. Ashdown Park Hotel, East Sussex — AA Milne
As bluebell season approaches, thoughts inevitably turn to Ashdown Forest, aka the Hundred Acre Wood and site of Winnie-the-Pooh’s adventures. Stately Ashdown Park Hotel is right in the thick of it and visitors come from far and wide to stay in one of its 106 rooms, play Pooh Sticks under the bridge memorably illustrated by EH Shepard and treat kids to a Winnie-the-Pooh afternoon tea. Alan Alexander Milne lived on the edge of the forest with his wife and son (the real Christopher Robin) and his idyllic 16th-century farmhouse — Cotchford Farm — was later bought by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. It’s now a six-bedroom retreat in two acres of beautiful grounds with a heated swimming pool and an ivy-clad statue of Owl.
Ashdown Park Hotel doubles from £199 B&B, ashdownpark.com. Cotchford Farm from £3,000 for three nights (cotchfordfarm.com)
6. Moonfleet Manor, Dorset — J Meade Falkner
From the White Nothe headland on the Jurassic Coast, a trail zigzags precipitously down the cliff to the sea. Known as the Smugglers’ Path, it is alluded to in Falkner’s thrilling 1898 children’s novel Moonfleet, which was inspired by the 18th-century home of the Mohune family in nearby Fleet (tunnels under the house are rumoured to lead to the Mohune family crypt in Fleet Old Church). The house is now a member of the Luxury Family Hotels group and eight of its 36 rooms and suites are named after Falkner and characters in the novel. The setting, overlooking Chesil Beach, is magnificent.
Doubles from £150 B&B (luxuryfamilyhotels.co.uk)
7. Burgh Island, Devon — Agatha Christie
Anyone who saw the BBC’s 2015 adaptation of And Then There Were None — starring Charles Dance, Aidan Turner et al — will be haunted by the image of the tidal island for ever. Christie wrote the multimillion-selling thriller in 1939 while staying at Burgh Island, a glamorous art deco hotel off the south Devon coast that was bombed in the Second World War, but has since been restored. Her writer’s retreat is now a modern beach house, Agatha’s Beach House, sleeping two to six, with panoramic sea views from its outdoor hot tub; at low tide, guests are ferried across by sea tractor.
Doubles from £480 B&B, Beach House from £940 B&B (burghisland.com)
8. Brown’s Hotel, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire — Dylan Thomas
The Welsh author of Under Milk Wood moved to this lovely village on the Carmarthenshire coast in 1949, living in a boathouse with his wife, Caitlin, and three children, writing in a shed and drinking at Brown’s. The latter, a Georgian mansion from 1752, is now a boutique hotel with an old-school pub, a farm-to-fork restaurant and 14 atmospheric rooms decorated with blown-up photographs of local people and landscapes. It comes into its own during the Laugharne Weekend (March 28-30, 2025). Otherwise, walk the Laugharne Loop from the castle ruins, take tea in the Boathouse (cofgar.wales) and peer into the shed overlooking the Taf estuary.
Doubles from £130 B&B (browns.wales)
9. Seaham Hall, Co Durham — Lord Byron
On January 2, 1815, this grand clifftop country house was the setting of the marriage between Annabella Milbanke, the only daughter of the 6th Baronet Milbanke, and George Gordon Byron. They had met through Byron’s mistress Lady Caroline Lamb (who was married to Annabella’s cousin, William Lamb, later adviser to the young Queen Victoria) and the marriage lasted just over a year. Their daughter Ada Lovelace, however, went on to become the world’s first computer programmer and the honeymoon suite at this extravagantly decorated 24-suite luxury spa hotel is named after her.
Suites from £299 B&B, Ada Lovelace Suite from £555 B&B (seaham-hall.co.uk)
10. The Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh — JK Rowling
JK Rowling may have begun Harry Potter in a café, but she completed it in the 167-room Victorian-Scottish baronial landmark that is the Balmoral — marking the occasion by inscribing “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007” on a marble bust of Hermes. A little owl door-knocker now welcomes guests to the suite, while Hermes sits in one of the three corner turrets looking down on Princes Street and North Bridge. It’s easy to imagine Hedwig roosting in the crown-shaped turret spire.
Doubles from £425 B&B, JK Rowling Suite from £1,595 B&B (roccofortehotels.com)
