Lymington, United Kingdom

Stanwell House

Price per night from$217.02

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP164.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Stanwell House Photos

Style

Homely harbourside haven

Setting

New Forest neighbour

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On a harbour-edge high street in a classic British coastal town, Stanwell House is an Anglophile-approved enclave between the Solent and the New Forest. Acceptable levels of chintz (in the form of uplifting Colefax and Fowler wallpaper and colourful seating) have been drafted in to renovate the hotel that already stood on this site, much to the relief of locals who now have a bar to convene in with excellent cocktails served alongside craft ales (and DFL-pleasing bar snacks), an orangery for afternoon tea and a restaurant for brasserie favourites with a few Asian twists. 

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Cocktails on arrival

Facilities

Photos Stanwell House facilities

Need to know

Rooms

27, including six suites.

Check–Out

11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Early check-ins and late check-outs are offered free provided there’s availability.

More details

Rates usually include breakfast.

Also

Stanwell House is set in an old Georgian building, which unfortunately is not easily accessible for guests with limited mobility.

At the hotel

Free WiFi throughout, terrace and garden. In rooms: TV with Chromecast, Roberts radio, Land & Water bath products, free bottled water, and tea- and coffee-making kit (fresh milk will be delivered in the morning and when you need it during the day).

Our favourite rooms

Each room has boutique-hotel staples such as a colourful old-school phone, a Roberts radio and colourful cushions and throws. We especially loved room 29, for its high bed, space and terrace above the hotel’s garden.

Packing tips

Lymington essentials: cobblestone-tackling footwear, boat shoes and a nice nautical windbreaker.

Pet‐friendly

Pooches are welcome in Terrace Rooms for £25 a night – baskets, a towel and a Sir Woofchester’s treat pot will be provided. See more pet-friendly hotels in Lymington.

Children

All ages are welcome – there are children’s menus at the restaurant and interconnecting room options are available for families. However, please note that the hotel does not specialise in family-oriented amenities.

Sustainability efforts

Stanwell House champion local suppliers and are environmentally conscious. Wherever possible, they try to avoid the use of single-use plastics.

Food and Drink

Photos Stanwell House food and drink

Top Table

On one of the green-velvet banquettes, or out on the terrace if the sun’s shining.

Dress Code

Sophisticated with a wink (smart-casual).

Hotel restaurant

Samphire serves modern British cuisine in a joyfully floral setting, with orange, pink and green as the rather colourful palette. Dine on salt and pepper squid with black-garlic mayonnaise, supersize satay sticks, venison carpaccio, lobster macaroni and hearty fish pie, but save room for the apple and pear terrine, which comes with a cinnamon doughnut and pot of custard. Breakfast is a simple spread, with à la carte add-ons of the usual suspects.

Hotel bar

The Salt Bar seamlessly blends the relaxed ambience of a casual setting with the refined elegance of a cocktail lounge, and its bar snacks are elevated too – the beer-battered samphire (served with a lemony Hollandaise) is the perfect pre-dinner bite.

Last orders

Breakfast is served at Samphire from 7.30am to 10am. A daytime menu is on offer between noon and 6pm, with afternoon tea available from 2pm to 5pm. Dinner is served from 6pm to 9pm. The Salt Bar opens daily, 11am to 11pm, and the Orangery opens at 10am.

Room service

Available around the clock.

Location

Photos Stanwell House location
Address
Stanwell House
14-15 High Street
Lymington
SO41 9AA
United Kingdom

Stanwell House is in the Hampshire port town of Lymington, on the edge of the New Forest.

Planes

Both Bournemouth and Southampton have airports (45 minutes to an hour away by car). If you’re landing in London, the drive from Heathrow should take an hour and 45 minutes; from Gatwick, allow two hours and a quarter. The hotel can arrange taxis and transfers on request.

Trains

The South Western Railway calls in at Lymington Town station, which is a four-minute walk from Stanwell House.

Automobiles

Limited parking is available off-site – ring the hotel ahead of arrival and they’ll let you know the inner workings of the first-come, first-served carpark.

Other

Ferries cross the Solent to and from the Isle of Wight.

Worth getting out of bed for

Stanwell House is right on the high street in the Hampshire harbour town of Lymington, which means proximity to both the New Forest and the Isle of Wight (ferries are lined up at the quay, ready to transport you over the Solent). Head into the not-so-New Forest to see its famous ponies, or locate one of its spa hotels (Lime Wood’s Herb House Spa is one of the finest in the region). In summer, early risers can join Sunday sunrise yoga sessions – the perfect start before a beach day or a browse through Lymington’s boutiques. The team will guide you to the best and nearest beaches, which include the shingle shore of Barton-on-Sea, lined by clay cliffs. Or if you’re here to boutique-browse and cream-tea-ingest only, that’s fine too. The cobblestoned lane that leads down to the quay is the ideal place to start.

Local restaurants

If you’re up for getting a taxi, dining destinations within a reasonably swift cab ride include Smith stablemates Lime Wood, Chewton Glen and the original Pig. But if you favour a post-prandial stumble home, the Elderflower is a wiser move – here, you can feast on tasting menus of confit trout with hibiscus and celeriac, halibut with crispy capers and artichoke, and venison with onion, smoked oyster and lentils. Also within walking distance is the High Street Kitchen, for seasonal British dishes, such as Somerset lamb with wild garlic and fondant potato, and butter-poached South Coast skate wing with lemon, caper and seaweed butter. 

Local cafés

Lost DFLs (that’s ‘Down From London’ in these parts) will find solace, sourdough and cinnamon buns at the Hoxton Bakehouse on the high street. Equally pleasing to any stray plant-based eaters is the Tinker’s Grandaughter vegan deli.

Local bars

The Ship Inn is a great British pub perfectly positioned right on the quayside or, if you haven’t made it that far, stop by for a swift half at the Kings Head, which has been supplying refreshment to mariners for three centuries. Or if you prefer the grape to the grain, the Cellar Tasting House and Wine Merchant is where to head for wine tastings in Lymington’s old customs house, which dates all the way back to 1680. 

Reviews

Photos Stanwell House reviews
Tamsin Scott

Anonymous review

By Tamsin Scott, Floral designer

It’s a dreamy journey however you approach Lymington in the New Forest. By sea, train or land, this is the most glorious yacht lover's paradise, deep in coastal Hampshire, with breathtaking surroundings: sandy shores and scenic hillsides.

Stanwell House is most definitely a jewel in the port town's crown, especially if you’re a fan of colourful upholstery and Colefax and Fowler’s joyful wallpaper prints. Located towards the bottom of the high street, it has an old-school Georgian elegance. I was arriving on a blustery (but desperately trying to be spring) day in February and even the weather couldn’t dampen its charm.

The interiors of the hotel are beautifully thought out: corridors of vibrant floral wallpaper, cosy lighting and sweeping staircases. There are quirky references to the boating community, but at the restaurant, you could easily be sat in the orangery of a country estate. It's the kind of hotel to make you see why holidaying in Britain really is a good idea (and why guaranteed sunshine is overrated), if you needed reminding. And it's the perfect base if you're hoping to visit the famous ponies of the New Forest, or call in at one of its superb spa hotels, such as Lime Wood or Chewton Glen. 

At reception, I was met by staff who could not have been more helpful or welcoming, ushering me up to a gorgeous suite on the first floor, overlooking the garden, with glimpses of the Isle of Wight in the distance. After my long (but very pretty) drive through Lyndhurst, Brockenhurst and the rest of the New Forest (waving at its wild ponies as I went), I was glad to make a pot of tea to enjoy in the suite's generous sitting room.

Lymington is a wonderful South Coast spot, packed with lovely shops, restaurants and tearooms, several boat clubs and an embarkation point for the drive-on ferry that takes you over to the Isle of Wight. The marina is filled with every kind of vessel, from small boats to millionaire yachts; and the chino brigade is alive and well here (along with the odd Jack Sparrow lookalike).

I was travelling for work, but this would make an idyllic holiday destination. The restaurant has more of the signature joyous wallpaper (which, as a florist, I especially enjoyed). During my stay, I dined on figs and prosciutto, and heavenly platters piled with ingredients from both land and sea. There are mouthwatering specials and all the classics, too. 

My recommendations for a stay at Stanwell House: be sure to have a pre-dinner drink at the cosy bar, as you listen to the locals' take on the shipping forecasts, over spicy margaritas and snacks such as padrón peppers with black-garlic mayonnaise and beer-battered samphire with Hollandaise; dine at the restaurant – where dishes such as scallops with chorizo and sweetcorn, chicken satay, and guinea fowl with blackberry await – at least once; wander down the cobbled streets leading to the water; visit Beaulieu, then call by The Pig in the New Forest (the group's original outpost) for lunch or dinner. And finally: don't forget your deck shoes.

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Price per night from $217.02

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