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 (GBP88.28), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
A stroll from Milsom Street’s shops and cafés, the Yard in Bath’s Georgian frontage masks a contemporary stay that’s a stylish step up from your standard B&B thanks to its all-day welcome, wine bar and carefully curated interiors. Draped, chandelier-lit rooms are materially modern, free of crystal, chintz or gilt. Its Grade II-listed courtyard and lamp-lit lounge spaces are the setting for catch-ups over all-day pastries and coffee, served from the hotel’s café. As day fades to night, it’s all about sharing plates and apéritifs to set you up for evenings out on the town, and nightcaps to welcome you back.
Smith Extra
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Free cocktail of choice; GoldSmith members will get a room upgrade where available.
10am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.
Prices
Double rooms from £105.94, including tax at 20 per cent.
More details
Rates include a daily a continental breakfast hamper but exclude the buffet breakfast in the café (£9 a head). There’s a two-night minimum for stays including a Saturday night.
Also
The West Country is woven into the fabric of the Yard in Bath, which is furnished with fabrics and wallcoverings from Gloucestershire-based Lewis & Wood as well as a local Bath upholsterer.
At the hotel
Café/wine bar. In rooms: Smart TV, Roberts Radio, Nespresso machine, free tea & coffee, minibar, glassware, free bottled water and fresh milk, Ren toiletries.
Our favourite rooms
All 13 rooms are a triumph of textures and pastel hues with patterned fabrics and wallpapers from local suppliers, bespoke beds and statement lighting by Pooky. The Larger King Size bedrooms take the podium thanks to generous proportions and grand ensuites, each with a slipper bath, as well as a private roof terrace adjoining first-floor room eight. At the top of the hotel, room 15 is a tucked-away Classic King Size room; room three is the only Cosy Kingsize facing the (quieter) courtyard.
Poolside
There’s no pool at the Yard in Bath, but the Thermae Spa baths are a short walk away.
Packing tips
Switch the blockbuster page-turner for Bath-based literature – where better to dip into Austen’s novels or Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Also
There are no wheelchair-adapted rooms at the Yard in Bath, but three of the rooms are on the ground floor and suitable for guests with some mobility. The hotel has umbrellas to borrow.
Welcome. Cots (free) or extra beds for under 11s (£35 a night) can be provided.
Sustainability efforts
The Yard in Bath is invested in its surrounding community, working with local interiors companies to decorate and furnish the hotel, and sourcing breakfast and minibar supplies from local producers, including freshly baked croissants, coffee pods, cider and gin. Breakfast hampers are reusable and their contents packaged with recyclable cardboard and glass.
Tables in the bar beside reception are bench-lined and candlelit. In summer, courtyard tables are easily the breeziest.
Dress Code
Ready to hit the town…
Hotel restaurant
There’s no restaurant at the Yard in Bath but it does have an all-day café, open for continental breakfast, cakes, snacks and drinks. Late afternoon, this courtyard and lounge serve as the bar, serving small plates of charcuterie and cheese alongside a thoughtfully curated wine list and cocktail menu – transforming downtime between day and dinner into an elegant apéro hour.
Hotel bar
Open to passers-by as well as guests, the Yard in Bath’s wine bar is made up of two ground-floor rooms beside reception and the hotel’s inner courtyard and is at its most bustling early evening and then for late-night tipples. Graze on small plates of local cheese or charcuterie alongside cocktails made with local gin, cider or English fizz.
Last orders
Breakfast hampers are hung on room doors from 8am or you can head to the café to enjoy your coffee and croissants à table. The café-bar is open all day until 10:30pm – when exactly the orders turn from coffee to cocktails is at your discretion.
Room service
If you prefer to keep things cosy, you can order drinks to your room at any time; snacks and savouries can be delivered until 10.30pm.
Around the corner from Queen Square and a short walk from the Roman Baths and Royal Crescent, the Yard in Bath is in the heart of the city.
Planes
Bristol is the nearest airport – 45 minutes away by road – with flights from London and major destinations across Europe. The hotel can arrange private transfers at extra cost.
Trains
Bath Spa is the nearest train station, a short cab ride or 15-minute walk away.
Automobiles
The hotel offers limited off-road parking opposite the hotel from £15 a day. Advance booking is required. Occasionally cars may need to be blocked in so guests may be asked to leave their keys at reception.
Worth getting out of bed for
The Roman Baths, Bath Abbey and the city’s shops, galleries and museums are within walking distance. Thermae Bath Spa is the place to dip du jour. Hire a narrowboat and explore the city from the canal or try stand-up paddleboarding on the Avon.
Local restaurants
The five-course set menu at Friday night’s supper club is the weekly highlight at shop-windowed Noya’s Kitchen, a blue-walled bistro serving Vietnamese cuisine; also open for pho, curry and noodles on other nights. At Clayton’s Kitchen, dishes such as grilled catch of the day with langoustine sauce and sautéed loin of venison with goats’ cheese potatoes are typical of the delicately presented fine dining you can expect from chef-patron Robert Clayton and team. In Milsom Place, lively Bosco Pizzeria serves bubble-crusted pizza and carafes of good Italian wine in a mid-century-style dining room of warm wood and black leather upholstery – lit moodily with glass cloche-shaded lamps.
Local cafés
Baker Andrew Lowkes specialises in sourdough bread from stoneground UK grain at indie bread-stop Landrace Bakery, where the bacon sandwiches and freshly baked pastries are as good as the loaves. A brunch and lunch spot on one of the city’s prettiest streets, Cafe Lucca comes into its own on summer days, serving bruschetta, panini and salads on its sunny terrace.
Local bars
In the basement of an old bakery, Bread & Jamat Walcot House has table-service cocktails and weekend DJ sets from 9pm. Ostensibly a wine shop on Saville Row, Beckford Bottle Shop celebrates British cuisine with a selection of small plates at bistro tables in the bottle-lined shop, Tuesday to Saturday.
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 courtyard hotel in Bath and unpacked their Mulberry satchels and Bath Gin, a full account of their city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside The Yard in Bath…
Bath’s elegant Georgian architecture, avenues of indie stores and bay-windowed cafés call for more than an one-night stand – and the Yard in Bath is perfectly positioned to escalate your city romance. Its geography, for starters, is ardently aphrodisiac, within walking distance of Bath Abbey, the Royal Crescent and Roman Baths. Yet there are facets of the hotel that are more subtly flame-kindling; everything from food and drink to furnishings is laced with local flavour. Back-to-bed breakfast hampers come with homemade granola, roasted-nearby coffee and Bath-baked croissants. Somerset cider, English fizz and Cotswolds gin beckon from the bar menu. A Bath upholsterer and furniture suppliers from Gloucestershire have helped set the scene for romance in the bedroom. As seductions go, this one’s steamily Bathonian.
