If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (GBP97.22), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
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.
11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Early check-ins and late check-outs are offered free provided there’s availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £116.66, including tax at 20 per cent.
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.
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.
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.
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). 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 stablematesLime 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.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this harbourside hotel in Hampshire and unpacked their bags of fudge and sticks of rock, a full account of their boat-filled break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Stanwell House in Lymington…
If you’re in need of a staycation spot to see why holidaying in Britain really is a good idea (and why guaranteed sunshine is overrated), Stanwell House should be on your radar. This high-street hideaway is on the main drag in Lymington, a harbour town on the edge of the New Forest, with a cobblestoned lane leading down to the quay, tearooms aplenty and cute little shops to while away an afternoon in. From here, you’ll be able to go see the ponies (and spas) of the New Forest, or set sail (by ferry if needs must) to the Isle of Wight. Once you’re ready to bed down for the night, there’s no finer place in town than Stanwell House, especially if you’re a fan of colourful upholstery and Colefax and Fowler’s joyful wallpaper prints. Start your evening in the snug Salt Bar, for spicy margaritas with snacks such as padrón peppers with black-garlic mayonnaise and beer-battered samphire with Hollandaise, before filling up even further at the restaurant, where dishes such as scallops with chorizo and sweetcorn, chicken satay, and guinea fowl with blackberry await.
