The Samling Hotel

It’s a dense country, and it’s hard to find a place that feels truly remote. But deep in the Cumbrian countryside of North West England, on a hillside above the shores of Lake Windermere, you’ll find the Samling, an 18th-century house that’s entering a new phase of life as an intimate 11-room boutique hotel.

Here “intimate” isn’t an exaggeration. It’s a small enough house that it can be booked in its entirety for larger parties, and even when it’s operating as a normal hotel it’s smaller and less fussy than the ordinary country-house hotel. Rather than a period drama full of maids and footmen, it’s a bit more like a private vacation home — service is excellent, but secondary to the main spectacle, which is the house, the estate and the lake.

Those surroundings, it must be said, are also a bit of a departure from the country-house hotel norm. Rather than acre after acre of manicured parkland, here you’re surrounded by a rough and wild landscape. From the stately rooms to the elegant restaurant to the bramble and bush on the hillside above the lake — the Samling is an experience of contrasts from beginning to end.