The Olde Bell Inn
Style Inn-keeping with tradition
Setting Thames riverside village
With parts of it dating back to 1135, The Olde Bell Inn in Hurley has heritage creeping out of every inglenook. Ilse Crawford, however, has imbued the mediaeval hostelry with the same rustic elegance she brought to Babington House – without sacrificing the oak-beamed, traveller’s-rest cosiness that has characterised the Thameside inn for centuries.
Need to know
- Rooms 17 refurbished Inn Doubles, seven refurbished Inn Suites and more to come.
- Rates Double rooms from $141.80 (£90), excluding tax at 20 per cent.
- More details Rates include Continental breakfast.
- Facilities Meadow garden, tennis court, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen TV, Roberts radio, Aesop toiletries. DVD players on request.
- Check-out 11am, but flexible, depending on availability. Check in, 2pm.
- Children The inn’s meadow gardens are the perfect natural playground. Baby cots are free.
- Also Small dogs are welcome, although the inn can’t offer food or bedding.
Food and drink at The Olde Bell Inn
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Hotel restaurant
The inn’s seasonally inspired, gastropubby menu is presided over by chef and author Warren Geraghty, who has a passion for foraging, sources his meat and fish locally and grows his greener ingredients in the inn gardens. All bread is baked fresh on site, and in summer, there’s a barbecue outdoors.
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Dress code
Barbour and Burberry. -
Top table
Have the Olde Bell prepare you a lunchtime picnic hamper (complete with blanket and bottle opener), and meander down to the riverbank. -
Last orders
Lunch, 12.30pm–3pm; dinner, 6.30pm–9.45pm. There’s no dinner served on Sundays. The bar is open until 11pm for non-residents, but guests can enjoy its hospitality as long as they wish. -
Room service
A full restaurant menu is available during kitchen opening hours, a snack selection at other times. -
Hotel bar
Lined with photographs of the inn’s past, the black-beamed bar area is riddled with nooks, woven with crannies, and warmed by an open-fire.
Also worth knowing
- Weddings This property is suitable for weddings. More...
The Olde Bell Inn High Street, Hurley, Berkshire, SL6 5LX
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Smith extra at The Olde Bell Inn
A bottle of NV Ayala champagne
In the know
Our favourite rooms
Simple, pared back, modern and comfortable, the Olde Bell’s Crawford-refurbished rooms retain the quintessentially English feel of the inn as a whole, with chunky farmhouse furniture, woven wool blankets, oak floorboards, and smart, natural tones. Thanks to the grassy scents of the hand-made rush matting, the rooms even smell rustic. Bathrooms are fitted with drench showers and, in the Malt House Larger rooms, elegant claw-foot baths (as well as showers). The Brick Barn rooms are situated in a revamped barn opposite the main inn building. If you can, ask for a room overlooking the wild-meadow garden.
Packing tips
Leave your library on the shelf – each of the Olde Bell’s rooms has a stash of Penguin Classics to thumb through.
From the Guestbook…
I have stayed at the Olde Bell Inn twice now in the last two weeks, and I have to say it has been a delight. The interior decoration and rooms are simply and cleverly done, with a ...
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