Stoke Place
“Stoke Place was built as a family residence in 1690, and little did they know that one day an enthusiastic hotelier would fill an entire wall with empty picture frames, paint the staircase a duck egg blue…”
“Stoke Place was built as a family residence in 1690, and little did they know that one day an enthusiastic hotelier would fill an entire wall with empty picture frames, paint the staircase a duck egg blue…”
It was my first evening at Banyan Tree Double Pool Villas in Phuket and an excitable looking Thai man was beckoning me away from my bubbly. “Miss Jessie, please follow me, I have something to show you…”
“This round office had a view through three imposing windows, and the whole rummy thing was decorated like a luxury apartment; it wasn’t like an office at all!” Jonesy stays at the Morning Post’s former HQ…
“I found myself at the chic new concrete concourse that is Kings Cross at the hitherto unheard of hour of 8am, to catch a train to the unknown quantity of Middlethorpe Hall in deepest Yorkshire.”
“When it comes to staying in a hotel in your home city, the test for me is how far it takes you out of the daily routine: the softening of the harsh edges of day-to-day life; the dulling of reality.”
Having just returned from Hollyweird, I’m still trying to cope with that wonderful thing they…
“Cyprus beckons; the birthplace of Aphrodite, far enough south for warmth and with a promised 320 days of sunshine per year, moussaka, mezze, aniseed spirits in small clear glasses.”
“I have never really fancied visiting Dubai. Dubai to me has always been like liver, or spinning – I do not need to try it to know that I won’t like it.” Jess puts aside her forebodings and discovers a different Dubai…
It was a beautiful warm and sunny day. I had just washed my hair and…
“I stare into the bevelled edge, floor to ceiling mirrors running around the room. Drifting my fingers over the notched glass handle of the wardrobe, I lose myself in visions of ’20s glamour…”
Victoria Sackville-West lyrically wrote of the region, “This calm of husbandry, this redolent tilth. This terracing of hills, this vintage wealth.” David explores the luxury properties of Tuscany’s Castelfalfi…
“Sometimes I still can’t believe there is a place called the Stanglwirt. It has a Narnia quality, and how I wish I could retreat to the back of my cupboard and enter into its reception daily.”