House style

18th-century Welsh stone house

Grounds

At the end of a lane in the heart of the township, the house has a south-facing garden overlooked by Laugharne’s Norman castle

Sleeps

Six, plus two in the attic room

Ideal for

Stylish house parties, couples’ getaway breaks, family gatherings and Dylan Thomas fanatics

Rates

One week: £895–£2,200. Three-night weekend breaks: £495–£1,250. Four-night midweek breaks: £495–£1,250.

Minimum hire

Three days. Rental starts on Saturdays at 5pm – flexible if no guests are staying beforehand

Also

Bedrooms are non-smoking. Pets are welcome – there’s plenty of open countryside surrounding the property. Midweek, you can occasionally hear take-offs from the military airbase a few miles away.

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Interior

Bedrooms 

There are three double bedrooms, and one attic room with a double sofa bed. Bedrooms 1 and 2 are on the first floor. Bedroom three occupies the second floor with a bathroom. Allergy-free bedding can be provided, and bedding is normally lightly spritzed with an organic aromatherapy treatment spray.

Bedroom 1: The mauve room; a double – and perhaps the most special, with an elevated roll-top bath and sink in the room. Bedroom 2: The green room; a stylish double slightly smaller than bedroom 1, with exposed beams, floorboards and rustic Art Deco décor with a Noughties touch. Bedroom 3: A twin room, with bathroom next door. An Art Deco dressing table, olive and claret colour scheme and heavy glass lamps give this room a luxuriously masculine feel.

Kitchen Fully equipped with double oven, microwave, dishwasher, Krups coffee machine and bean grinder. The kitchen is stocked with the basics; tea, coffee, bread, milk, juice, crisps, fruit and oven-baked Welsh Barabrith cake are all included – as are herbs, spices and oils. In the pantry is an endless supply of complimentary still/sparkling mineral water. For more self-catering supplies, see our ‘Services’ section.

Living room 50-inch TV with Sky+, DVD, CD/WiFi system and a large selection of DVDs. An enormous up-lit (and working) inglenook fireplace provides a roaring winter fire, while exposed beams stretch across soft brown leather sofas adorned with sleep-inducing cushions and throws.

Dining room Philippe Starck acryllic balloon back chairs huddle around a table that seats six, under a black chandelier lampshade. Doors open onto a suntrap conservatory.

Other The dining room leads to a third reception room: the conservatory. The attic entertainment room has a 50-inch flatscreen TV and Nintendo Wii. There’s also a double sofa bed for getting that little bit more comfortable.

Outdoor

Gardens A limestone floor conservatory opens out onto a manicured garden in the shadow of Laugharne Castle, with plenty of space to throw a barbecue. The garden is south-facing, with sun loungers and a dining area that seats six.

Parking There is parking at both the front and the rear of the property to accommodate two cars.

Other Longshore House is set in the beating heart of Laugharne. Turn right out of the gate at the end of the garden – you’re a 30 second walk past the bubbling brook to all the pubs, cafes and restaurants on the square.

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Getting there

Planes Cardiff airport is one hour and 45 minutes away by car

Trains Whitland is the nearest station to Laugharne. Trains from London Paddington to Whitland take four and a half hours (see www.trainline.co.uk for details). It's then a 20 minute taxi drive to Laugharne.

Local taxi service Bean taxis (+44 (0) 7989 796489); C&A Taxis (+44 (0) 7976 617047). Remember to pre-order if you need a taxi from Whitland train station as there is no taxi rank. For car hire, click on our Travel Offers page. Smithcard holders get a 10 per cent discount with Hertz.

Directions by road The nearest motorway is the M4 from London. Upon entering Wales on the M4, take the A48 signposted Carmarthen (join the A48 only when the motorway finishes, not before). Next, take the A40 signposted Fishguard and St Clears. Entering St Clears, turn right onto the A4066 signposted Laugharne and Pendine. Arriving at Laugharne, drive past Browns Hotel and then the clock tower, both on your left, and turn right opposite the clock tower into Duncan Street. Longshore House is at the end of the road on the left (look out for topiary either side of the door).

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An irresistible medley of sharp limestone floors and enormous exposed beams, this boutique style self-catering house in Laugharne manages to achieve something pretty tricky in ‘Dylan Thomas country’: drop-dead glam décor within a traditional Welsh stone cottage skin. Built sometime around the 1770s, none of the character of Longshore House has been compromised in its up-to-the-second modernisation. Swathes of Mulberry and Designers Guild fabrics stretch sumptuously alongside heavy glass lamps and clear acrylic chairs.  Creaky cottage doors and enormous ship timber beams cast a watchful eye over their Noughties counterparts, ensuring the house remains true to its 18th-century roots. The result is a perfect combination of red-hot style and relaxed seclusion – buried at the end of a tiny Laugharne lane.

Waking up in Longshore House is quite an experience. The church bells that have roused Laugharne residents since the 13th-century gently pull you into the world; bird song filling the peaceful hours between chimes. Look out of the window and rose-rambingly twee cottages nestle all around you. A duck under the beams and a pad down the wide staircase will take you past the three bedrooms and into the heart of the house. The aroma of fresh coffee wafts through the sparkling kitchen, past the dining room and conservatory and out into the garden, where breakfast is best enjoyed under a baby blue Welsh sky.

The owners, interior designer Lesley Taylor-Bottomley and her husband Kevin, run their company Taylor’s Etc from stores in Cardiff, Swansea and Narberth and have left no corner of this house un-dazzled by their designer fingertips. Zoffany and Philippe Starck magic bobs and weaves across heel-cooling limestone floors, up and around fresh stargazer lilies and Venetian mirrors and over soft throws on crisp linen-covered beds. Natural Magic scented candles perch on sills, Branche d’Olive aromatic soaps and oils send fragrances flying from room to room; this isn’t simply about the décor – it’s an enveloping sensual experience.

This delicate declaration of design extends to the three bedrooms: two doubles, one twin. Rich, floor-length drapes shut the world out, whilst aromatherapy-spritzed sheets gently tuck you in. An in-room roll-top bath here, a Twenties dressing table there; this is rustic-Deco décor punctuated with all the sharp lines and glass touches you’d expect of the Noughties. The high-design bathroom and wet room have been created using the very best products. Exclusive Starck brassware and iridescent mosaic floor tiles from Italy blend seamlessly with natural stone and floor spotlighting. With a step-up square bath so deep that you soak shoulder-deep whilst sitting upright, bathing is the ceremony that the Abahna toiletries promise it will be. A surprise staircase leads you up further into an attic room bursting with a side serving of throws, cushions and bean bags, to go with the main dish of a 50-inch TV and Nintendo Wii. This is the perfect space for raucous parties, children, and do-not-disturb reading moments alike.

But as its show-off bath suggests, Longshore House, like its Laugharne neighbour Dylan, was born to entertain. The soft brown leather and the woollen throws of the living room serve to adorn the focal point of the room – and house – an inglenook fireplace so large it practically needs its own postcode. You can imagine the original owners of the house in a tin bath by the fire (a trend to bring back?) in a space that now begs guests to lie back with a bottle of red from the pantry and a slab of local mustard and ale cheese. To the rear of the state-of-the-art self-catering kitchen, where Barabrith cake can be ordered and found baking on arrival, lies a dining room for six and a further conservatory reception room. Beyond that is a south-facing, manicured garden (and a long-lost well, apparently) overlooked by Laugharne Castle. Ideal for both summer parties and cosy winter retreats, Longshore House makes no apology for its pristine – yet relaxed – party-perfect credentials.

Often it’s tempting to hide away in a rented house, leaving only to top up milk and wine supplies. But the beauty of Longshore House is that it sits in the nucleus of the tiny stone-clad township of Laugharne – the size of a very small village – so everything is already on your doorstep. Literally. Turn right out of the back gate and in front of you is Grist Square with its cluster of pubs, cafés and simple restaurants. The inspiration for Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, Laugharne is full of charm and friendly locals ready to point you in the direction of the Pembrokeshire coastline. Now, finally, it has its own luxurious rental property to match.

Review: Charlotte Crisp

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