Cotswolds, United Kingdom

The Lakes by Yoo

Price per night from$380.52

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 (GBP290.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

The Lakes by Yoo Photos

Style

Yoo beauty

Setting

Lakes of Lechlade

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The Lakes by Yoo is a private estate of family-friendly apartments and cabins in the Cotswolds. With 850 acres of lakes, meadows and ancient woodland, it's a bucolic setting that's as serene as it is safe. And these luxury residences don’t have a straw of thatch on them, all are contemporary country stays sprung from the creative well of design collective Yoo Studio – co-founded by Philippe Starck – that were destined to be a little avant-garde: jewel-toned four-poster beds, egg-shaped bath tubs and a playful streak are present and correct. Alfresco restaurant the Lakes Bar & Kitchen’s menu shines a tractor beam on local produce, and the lakes are an endless source of fun, whether you’re kayaking or zip-lining across.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A bottle of white wine per booking

Facilities

Photos The Lakes by Yoo facilities

Need to know

Rooms

27 rooms, apartments and cabins.

Check–Out

10am for The Reserve, 11am for rooms, apartments and cabins. Earliest check-in, 4pm.

More details

Rates usually exclude breakfast.

Also

Yoo’s concierge team will light your fire (literally, not metaphorically), deliver a bike to your door and unpack your Ocado order. Fancy a dinner party? Like the best of guests, a chef will prepare a set menu and staff will serve and clean up after. You can also have a mixologist tend bar in your kitchen with a full arsenal of spirits and a few drinking games up their sleeve.

At the hotel

Lakes with boats and canoes; tennis courts, football pitch, golf and cricket nets, zipline and climbing wall, mini farm with rescued animals and vegetable garden, arboretum, bird-hide, acres of meadowland, gym, and free WiFi throughout. In villas: TVs, air-conditioning and Wildsmith Skin bath amenities.

Our favourite rooms

Lakeside Cabins are a cosy affair, with their vintage furniture, log-burner and mezzanine bedroom. The furnished terraces overhang Marley Lake, and when the water gets too tempting, you can hop straight in off your private deck.

Poolside

The indoor, heated 17-metre pool in the main building (around a 10-minute walk from most cabins and apartments) cleverly allows you to enjoy the green gloriousness of the British countryside through walls of windows, while letting you shelter from the – occasionally (ahem) – poor British weather. Lined with deep-blue tiles and surrounded by snooze-ably soft loungers and day-beds, it’s also handily set by the sauna and steam room. The indoor pool is open daily from 6am to 10pm. Brave lodgers by the lakes can also dive straight in for a spot of wild swimming.

Spa

Just follow your nose to the Spa by Yoo's treatment rooms – cosy lemongrass- and rose-scented sanctuaries in the main building, where therapists will knead, scrub and apply Moss of the Isles and Wildsmith Skin lotions and potions. Beauty treatments are offered too, including Dr Barbara Sturm facials and signature spa rituals from Cosmoss by Kate Moss, and the gym is hot on toning and trimming, with state-of-the-art equipment as well as personal training and yoga classes. The spa is open between 6am and 10pm for guests. (You'll need to bring your own towels which will be provided in your accommodation.)

Packing tips

Pack a pair of Hunter wellies to look the part; country evenings can be a little quiet, so a stash of travel games may come in handy: Scrabble, anyone?

Also

The Lakes by Yoo isn’t best suited for those with reduced mobility.

Pet‐friendly

Furry friends are very welcome (for an additional charge of £50 a stay). Dog-friendly residences (some Three-Bedroom Apartments, Lakeside Cabins and the Reserve) come with bowls and beds. There’s dog-sitting for £25 an hour, too. See more pet-friendly hotels in Cotswolds.

Children

Little Smiths are welcome. Villas sleep the biggest broods and an outdoors kids’ club has activities to fill the longest of school holidays: zipline sessions, bushcraft, woodworking, treasure hunts and raft-building, to name a few.

Best for

Juniors, tweens and teens will appreciate the outdoorsy fun.

Recommended rooms

All villas have enough room to sleep smalls.

Activities

There’s no shortage of outdoor activities to keep little Smiths busy, from nature walks and pond dipping, to den building and bushcraft. The Explorers’ Club (open during school holidays) is suitable for ages five to 14 and is designed all around the estate’s sustainability programme. Join chief conservationist, Amber, for fun-filled days exploring the wild corners of the Lakes by Yoo. Outside the kids’ club, children can play out Swallows and Amazons-style fantasies by zip-lining over the lake, cycling on the estate, canoeing and fishing on the beach. 

Swimming pool

The pool is 1.2 metres deep and has no lifeguard, so children should be closely watched. There's a separate kids' bubble pool for little ones.

Meals

Fear not, frazzled parents – at the Lakes Bar & Kitchen your little ones can run around with abandon while you sip champagne. For kids, there are pizza slices and burgers; highchairs are available on request.

Babysitting

Nannies and babysitters can be booked from £25 an hour, for a minimum of three hours.

Sustainability efforts

Naturally, sustainability is at the heart of the Lakes by Yoo. Large pockets of the Lakes’ land are left untouched in an effort to rewild; come spring the area is carpeted in wildflowers which attracts bees from the estate’s hives. The eco-ponds have a similar no-intervention approach, allowing natural wildlife to flourish. If only it was as easy as leaving it all to Mother Nature, though – gardeners have also planted around 500,000 trees, chipping any that fall and using their bark around the grounds. There’s even a mini farm for rescue animals, such as Frank and Kevin, their first rescued pigs.

Food and Drink

Photos The Lakes by Yoo food and drink

Top Table

Fresh air, the grass beneath your feet, a glass of champagne: the restaurant’s lakeside picnic tables capture the essence of the Cotswolds.

Dress Code

As Cotswolds-casual as you please, accessorised with a brolly if necessary.

Hotel restaurant

The Lakes Bar & Kitchen is a cosy eatery with rustic interiors and alfresco picnic tables, ideal for breakfasts and lazy lunches. At breakfast, you can look forward to Cotswold sausages, smoked bacon, organic eggs and sourdough from a local baker. Lunches use the vegetable-garden harvest and local produce in salads and noodle dishes, with burgers and pizzas for little (and larger) ones. In the run up to Christmas, the tipi restaurant hosts feasting evenings, a three-course affair with plenty of fizz to get you in the festive spirit.

Hotel bar

The Lakes Bar & Kitchen has a small yet considered wine list and the bartenders certainly know how to shake up a cocktail or two. 

Last orders

The Lakes Bar & Kitchen opens from 9am until 4pm, Sunday to Thursday, and until 10pm, Friday to Saturday.

Room service

The hotel can arrange private chefs from catering company Relish for in-villa dinners; they have encyclopaedic menus for all tastes.

Location

Photos The Lakes by Yoo location
Address
The Lakes by Yoo
The Lakes Coln Park
Claydon Pike near Lechlade
GL7 3DT
United Kingdom

The sprawling Lakes by Yoo estate is in leafy Lechlade to the south of the Cotswolds, in between storybook villages Thornhill and Claydon.

Planes

London Heathrow is the closest international hub, a 90-minute drive from the Lakes by Yoo; Gatwick is around a two-hour drive away.

Trains

Swindon is the nearest railway station, a 35-minute drive from the estate. Great Western trains from London Paddington arrive here in an hour, and there are direct services from Bristol and Swansea.

Automobiles

You can have a scone without the cream, but it’s so much better with; the same goes for getting around in the Cotswolds: in the Range Rover-roamed countryside, stations are scarce and taxis are pricey, so be sure to hire wheels en route. There are also charging units for electric vehicles across the site.

Worth getting out of bed for

The Lakes by Yoo estate is action-packed and considers all guests, whether you want to strap on some waders and fish in the lakes or head to Bowmoor Sailing Club for a genteel afternoon out on the water; and canoeing, biking and zip-lining cover three of the elements (the jury’s out on the fire-based activity though…). Beyond the estate, the Cotswolds’ perennial bucolic charms await. Village-hopping is the tried and true method of fitting in all the local ale that’s fit to drink and all the scones fit to sit on a cake tier. Lechlade hosts a family-friendly music festival come May, and Filkins, a 10-minute drive away, is home to beloved pub the Five Alls. The Romans settled in Cirencester, and happened to leave a lot of their stuff there – some of it is stored in the excellent Corinium Museum, and the Chedworth Roman Villa is a 25-minute drive from town. Bourton-on-the-Water’s bird sanctuaries and brewery and Stow-on-the-Wold’s antique shops and farmers markets are all 30 minutes away from the Lakes by Yoo by car; Cheltenham’s Regency splendour and racecourse are a 50-minute drive.

Local restaurants

Flagstone flooring, a fireplace straight from a Dickens tome, maybe a dog in the corner: it’s worth leaving your luxurious home to get cosy in a local-packed eatery. The Lamb Inn is a 20-minute drive away; scarlet interiors and creaky wood flooring give it an old-timey feel, and its pub menu serves straight-up, simple comfort grub. For more refined fare, drive for 40 minutes to The Wild Rabbit in Kingham, which serves an excellent tasting menu with locally sourced goodies – pace yourself, portions are generous.

Local cafés

The original Daylesford Organic Farm shop (champion of organic fare) is in Kingham, a 40-minute drive from the estate. Go for a day-trip and stop for lunch at the shop’s café, where the menu is deliciously healthful.

Local bars

Local wisdom dictates that light ales should be drunk in summer, dark in winter, but we’re partial to either year-round. The Swan at Southrop, a 10-minute drive away or an hour’s ramble away from Yoo, serves pints of Keene's Cotswold Premium Lager, and has an exemplary menu too. The wood-panelled Riverside pub, a 30-minute walk away, is welcoming and relaxed and serves up homemade pizzas alongside pub classics.

Reviews

Photos The Lakes by Yoo reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

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 these luxurious villas in the Cotswolds and unpacked their tubs of clotted cream and sprigs of freshly plucked lavender, a full account of their British countryside break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the Lakes by Yoo’s rooms, apartments and cabins in quaint hamlet Lechlade…

The Lakes by Yoo has a constellation of stars circling it. Springing forth from design stable Yoo Studio founded by Philippe Starck, influential glamourpusses have turned interior designer: Jade Jagger, Kelly Hoppen, Kate Moss… Each of the estate’s modern villas are ridiculously good-looking: some are Scandi-influenced, some are cosily rustic and many have terraces overhanging the estate’s man-made lakes. 

Those lakes may be placid, but they’re also action-packed; guests can fish in them, glide over them in a canoe, or even zip-line across. The spa and an expansive covered swimming pool (with green views) offer more genteel pursuits. Or, you could sit out by the lake at the Lakes Bar & Kitchen and eat your fill of country fare alfresco – washed down with coupes of champagne and excellent wine. If you’d rather eat at home, request that the culinary whizzes at Dineindulge stop by with their wares. You can also get a cocktail maestro to tend bar in your kitchen and – if that goes well – head for a fry-up the next morning. 

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Price per night from $380.52

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