Gilpin Hotel & Lake House

The Cunliffe family have run Gilpin for generations, and their fingerprints are what make it the Lake District's most personable luxury stay. Set in mature gardens and woodland a couple of miles from Windermere, the main house has grown organically from Edwardian villa into a Relais & Châteaux member with a wardrobe of room styles—classic house rooms, garden suites, and spa suites and lodges where saunas, rain showers and outdoor hot tubs come as standard.

Food carries equal billing. SOURCE, the hotel's flagship restaurant, has earned national attention for precise, produce-led tasting menus, while the Gilpin Spice pan-Asian room offers an unexpected change of register for a second night—an unusually clever move for a small country hotel. Service throughout has the warmth of a family operation with none of the amateurishness the phrase can imply.

A mile down the lane sits the Lake House, an adults-only annexe of six rooms on its own private lake with a small spa, boathouse and gardens, from which guests are chauffeured to the main house for dinner. Fell walks start from the door and Windermere's jetties are minutes away. For a romantic Lakeland escape that takes both dinner and downtime seriously, Gilpin is the benchmark.