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 (GBP120.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Top-notch pub fare, a panoramic terrace and warm welcomes will leave you wondering how the Cotley Inn could improve on its hospitality laurels… The answer lies in an overhauled Grade II-listed stables block, now home to four cosy rooms awash in country charm and original features. Lunch and dinner come with a side of smugness when you can slope back to your room at siesta or bed time. This boutique stay in Wambrook puts you in the bucolic heart of the Blackdown Hills just outside Chard, with easy access to Lyme Regis and the South West Coast.
10.30am. Earliest check-in, 3pm, but flexible as availability allows.
Prices
Double rooms from £144.00, including tax at 20 per cent.
More details
Rates include Continental breakfast (fresh pastries, ham, cheese, local yoghurts, fruit, nuts and cereals) with self-service (and freshly laid) boiled eggs.
Also
The gravel grounds and listed buildings of the Cotley Inn are sadly unsuitable for wheelchair users.
Hotel closed
During low season (October to May), both the restaurant and hotel are closed on Sunday evenings, Mondays and Tuesdays.
At the hotel
Free WiFi, communal fridge and ice machine, wellington boots to borrow. In rooms: TV, Dyson fan, Nespresso machine, tea-making kit, free bottled water, waffle bathrobes, and Bramley bath products.
Our favourite rooms
All rooms come with a marvellous meld of old-meets-new charm, featuring exposed stonework, ceiling beams, and modern muted hues as well as high-spec linens and textiles. The stables block, although transformed, is Grade II-listed, meaning the original low doorways are still intact, but open onto interiors that are light-filled and surprisingly airy. We love the Holt for its mezzanine bedroom in the eaves with a slipper bath tub. The cosiness of the Nest and the Drey has us planning a staycation for one… And if you want a little indoor lounge space with your king-size, the Den is all you need.
Packing tips
Deciding on your kind of Somerset is the key to good packing: whether you’ll be planning cliff-hugging yomps, seaside strolls, or mooching around market towns will dictate the garb you require.
Also
Wednesday to Friday, the pub closes between 3pm and 6pm.
Pet‐friendly
Up to two dogs can stay in either the Holt or the Den for a flat fee of £15. Dog treats are provided and there’s an outdoor washing station with pet shampoo. See more pet-friendly hotels in Somerset.
Children
Welcome. Both the Den and the Holt have a sofa-bed that will sleep up to two little Smiths.
Sustainability efforts
In the Cotley Inn’s four rooms, bath products and glass water bottles are both refillable. The inn has a strict recycling policy, sources meat from the local estate, grows its own fruit and veg in the kitchen garden, and upcycles its food waste as sustenance for the resident livestock.
The sun terrace for lunch; the furthest-left salon for cosy winter dining; or the beer garden for pre-dinner drinks.
Dress Code
Anything goes, from been-out-rambling casual attire to dressier threads that add a touch of glamour when supper calls.
Hotel restaurant
Breakfast (for guests only) is set out in the appropriately titled breakfast room, a converted skittles alley overlooking the kitchen garden. There’s a Continental spread of cereals, yoghurt, fruit, nuts, ham, cheese and fresh pastries, plus a boiler into which you can pop a freshly laid egg for soft-boiled deliciousness. Not that you’ve come here for the toast soldiers… The Cotley Inn is popular whether you’re staying or not, and does a roaring trade for lunch and dinner, serving refined comfort food and modern British plates. Dining spots range from a series of indoor pub salons, to the paved sun terrace, or across the way at picnic tables in the turfed beer garden. There’s no pretension to the menu, which is seasonal where possible, and features plenty of locally sourced ingredients (some from the pub’s kitchen garden), as well as eggs from the resident hens. This is, however, elevated pub grub, so the burgers may be venison, the mac ’n’ cheese possibly flecked with wild garlic, and the slow-roasted pork belly could well hail from pigs reared at the farm. Sunday lunchtimes have their own menu, featuring traditional roasts, as well as fish and chips, and a Caerphilly-and-Homity wellington. If you’re a meat eater, it’s worth noting that all the beef is supplied from the surrounding estate and butchered on site. And a deftly curated wine selection ensures the drinking is as palatable as the dining.
Hotel bar
As well as the traditional country pub that serves the terrace and tables indoors, in the beer garden a converted railway carriage takes care of more-casual dining, serving up sourdough pizzas and alcoholic slushies to punters at picnic tables on the lawn.
Last orders
Breakfast hours are 8.30am until 9.30am. The restaurant is closed on Sunday evenings, Mondays and Tuesdays. Wednesday to Sunday, lunch is served from noon until 2pm (until 2.30pm on Sundays); for dinner, it’s 6.30pm until 9pm (or until 8pm, Sundays).
Room service
This pub-with-rooms stay is all about enjoying the convivial atmosphere of the Inn, with drinks and snacks only ever steps away from your room.
The Cotley Inn is in the village of Wambrook, just outside Chard in Somerset’s Blackdown Hills – far enough south in the county to be on the doorstep of the Devon and Dorset borders.
Planes
Exeter (a 30-minute drive) and Bristol (one-and-a-quarter hours away by road) are the nearest regional airports, with some international arrivals. London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports are both just over three hours’ drive from the Cotley Inn.
Trains
In order of proximity, Axminster and Crewkerne are the nearest train stations, with connections from London Waterloo, each less than 25 minutes away by road from the Inn. Taunton, served by GWR from London Paddington, is a 35-minute drive from the hotel.
Automobiles
In this bucolic corner of Somerset, relying on public transport would be foolhardy, so you’ll want your own set of wheels, and there’s a free outdoor carpark at the Inn.
Worth getting out of bed for
This southerly slice of Somerset in the Blackdown Hills puts Devon and Dorset delights on your doorstep, too. The market town of Axminster is a short drive away, as is River Cottage Kitchen & Store. Lyme Regis, too, is easily in range – home to the waveswept Cobb harbour wall, super-scenic mini golf, an excellent promenade and some of the steepest gradients of any shopping streets in West Dorset. Eastwards from here, the Unesco-listed Jurassic Coast (and accompanying South West Coast Path) stretches all the way to Purbeck, enticing fossil hunters, cold-hardy swimmers, and wandering pebble-throwers to the sweeping shores of Chesil Beach. Forde Abbey, a 20-minute drive from the hotel, is a privately run former Cistercian monastery with 1,600 acres, a café and beautiful gardens worth a visit.
Local restaurants
In handsome Hinton Saint George, Smith-approved Lord Poulett Arms is where you can find upscale pub grub that borrows liberally from international cuisines. We’re eyeing up oven-dried Isle of Wight tomatoes with whipped feta and artichokes, followed by char-roasted West Country pork chop with polenta and corn salsa, with hopes of pushing on for skillet cookie and ice-cream. Snuffling the countryside around Honiton is your nearest Pig – the Pig at Combe; a surefire spot for flavour-packed, seasonal plates made with produce from the hotel’s walled gardens, Lyme Bay catch, Devonshire cheese, and South West-reared meat. With mesmerising views over the bay, the Oyster & Fish House in Lyme Regis may have lost Mark Hix’s name, but his touch is still evident in the refined seafood and fish plates you’ll find at this hut-like, no-frills dining spot (you’ll need to book).
Local bars
Polished floors, marble-top tables and colourful furnishings bring verve to cocktail hour at Ilminster lounge-bar, the Somerset – primarily an evening venue but open daytime on Fridays and Saturdays.
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 polished pub with rooms in the Blackdown Hills and unpacked their cider and Somerset cheddar, a full account of their gastronomic break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the Cotley Inn in Somerset…
A pub lunch done well is a thing of beauty. We may be paraphrasing John Keats, but sometimes, when the roast has been cleared and the pudding scoffed, after the last dregs of beer or wine have been sunk, the thought of leaving all this <gestures at crockery-cluttered picnic table in beatific countryside> can be a source of mildly crushing comedown. Pub connoisseurs Ben and Maddie understand these first-world woes. Which is why, when they returned to Somerset after a stint in the Canadian Rockies, they decided that their new hostelry venture in Wambrook, the Cotley Inn, could offer more than excellent pub food and pints. The Grade II-listed stables block has been transformed into four bijou rooms, including two that are fit for families. It’s the food, however, that’s the main draw here. Terms such as seasonal and local are much over-used but at their most authentic is this bucolic spot, where eggs come from the Inn’s resident chickens, pork from its pigs, and the kitchen garden supplies herbs, fruit and veg. And when you want to walk off those pints and puddings, the undulating Blackdown Hills are on your doorstep, with the delights of East Devon and the Jurassic Coast also nearby.
