Classic Cotswolds (Tour B)

Thyme is a collection of 17th-century, honey-hued stone cottages scattered across the sprawling Southrop Manor estate and offers a classic country break in the Cotswolds. Well, almost: the green pastures, home-farmed cuisine and assorted heirlooms are present and correct, but look closer and you’ll spy mod-rustic interiors and a cookery school prepping future Michelin-star holders. The rooms are situated in the houses and cottages around the courtyard to the north of the magnificent barns. They are a moment’s walk away from the reception and Baa which sits adjacent to the beautiful Tithe Barn. The Baa is an elegant drawing room where teas, herbal infusions and coffees are served throughout the day. There is a wonderful wine and cocktail list which specialises in carefully selected English wines, sparkling wines and botanical cocktails which take seasonal inspiration from the herbs growing in our gardens, water meadows and hedgerows. 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 lambs and pigs 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). Dinner is recommended at The Swan pub, just a few moments away in the village centre, a lovely pub-restaurant that has stayed true to its country-pub roots, championing localism (ingredients’ ancestry is traced on the menu) and dishing up hearty portions. Dishes are mostly modern British, with a little Italian and French influence. Breakfast is served in the Tithe Barn.