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 (GBP125.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Tillingham’s regenerative Sussex estate is shaking up England's wine scene like a bottle of its biodynamic fizz. Set among the rolling green hills of rural Rye, this modish estate comprises vineyards, woodland, and a renovated farmstead with 11 McCully and Crane-designed rooms. Here, guests can round-off days spent sipping on estate-made rosé, sharing wood-fired pizzas alfresco, or tasting their way through the region’s finest produce upstairs in the award-winning restaurant.
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £150.00, including tax at 20 per cent.
More details
Rates include a farmhouse breakfast of coffee or tea, fruit juice, sourdough bread, butter, jam, granola, yoghurt, cheese and charcuterie. Hot dishes and barista-style coffees are available for an additional charge.
Also
There is one ground floor room suitable for guests with limited mobility. Please contact Smith’s travel team to book.
Please note
span id="docs-internal-guid-a7b594f1-7fff-3885-8f9c-3d3ab688c696">Due to Tillingham’s rural setting, stable WiFi can only be guaranteed in communal areas.
At the hotel
Vineyards, farm and walled garden; on-site boutique; Wellington boots and umbrellas to borrow, free WiFi. In rooms: Roberts radio, free bottled water and Fill and Haeckel's bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Set in a former hop barn, each of Tillingham’s 11 rooms have been meticulously fashioned by Rye-based art and interiors studio McCully and Crane. Most have views of the vineyards and surrounding woodland, but for a little extra space – and a freestanding bath tub – you can’t go wrong with the Feature Double Room, which comes with its own private terrace, fire pit, and endless views over the Tillingham valley.
Spa
There’s no spa, but in-room treatments with local masseuse and reflexologist can be booked on request.
Packing tips
Wellies and umbrellas are provided for the wetter months, so all you need to do is save enough suitcase space for a few bottles of the good stuff…
Pet‐friendly
Your four legged companion is welcome to stay with you in one of Tillingham’s three dog-friendly rooms, subject to a £30 cleaning fee – they're even welcome on wine tours. See more pet-friendly hotels in East Sussex.
Children
Over 10s are welcome. Children under the age of 16 must share a room with an adult, and roll out beds can be provided – upon request – in Large and Feature rooms.
Sustainability efforts
Sustainability is at the heart of Tillingham’s operation as a low-intervention, organic farm and vineyard. This means no chemicals are used in their agri- and viticultural practices, and livestock roam freely between the vines to keep down weeds and grasses without machinery. There’s a composting sewage system, no single-use plastics, and energy-saving light systems, too. Reclaimed wood has been used when renovating the original farm buildings, which are insulated to modern standards to avoid unnecessary heating, and all bathroom products are made with entirely natural ingredients. In the kitchen, the produce is homegrown or locally sourced, vegetables are pickled to ensure an optimal shelf life, and all glass, plastic and cardboard that cannot be reused is recycled. Plus, Tillingham provides work experience and apprenticeships to local young people and supports a number of charities in the area.
Nab a pew next to the kitchen to see Tillingham’s chef’s slice and dice their way through the evening.
Dress Code
In-keeping with Tillingham’s back-to-the-land ethos, ditch the fast fashion for more sustainable sartorial choices.
Hotel restaurant
At the hotel's Green Michelin star restaurant, a five-course garden menu showcases fresh produce from the estate’s walled garden and surrounding farms, meat reared on Tillingham land and fish caught daily at Rye Harbour. Tuck into dishes like lion’s mane schnitzel and black garlic; monkfish, rainbow chard and roe; or savoy cabbage and alliums – so handsomely presented that they rival the rolling views of the vineyard outside. A three- or five-course lunch is served on Fridays and Saturdays, and Sunday is all about roast dinners done the Tillingham way with local Morebread farm lamb, Sutton Hoo chicken, whole-day boat fish or roasted squash. For the full experience, opt for the wine pairing and have their in-house Sommelier talk you through each glass. Or, for something more casual, the estate’s converted Dutch barn serves wood-fired pizza. It’s a charming spot during the summer months, with festoon lights hanging from the industrial pergola as chickens cluck around at your feet.
Hotel bar
Styled by Karen Davenport, the bar’s industrial interiorscombine white brick walls with rustic and vintage details – tables fashioned from untouched wood, warm hanging lights, patterned cushions and vases full of foraged and hand-picked flowers from the farm. Here, you can work your way through the estate’s roster of biodynamic wines – from peculiarly pink pinot noirs to their crowd-pleasing col fondo – accompanied by seasonal small plates and bar snacks. And when you’re all grape-d out, their menu of inventive cocktails, homemade cider and delicious soft options make for equally interesting stand-ins.
Last orders
Breakfast runs from 8.30am to 10.30am, lunch from noon till 2pm (Friday and Saturday only), and dinner from 6pm and 8pm daily. Tillingham’s bar pours from noon till 11pm.
You’ll find Tillingham’s vast vineyards just north of Rye on England’s southeasterly coast.
Planes
London’s Gatwick Airport is closest, just over an hour away by car.
Trains
The nearest train station is Rye, a 10-minute drive from the estate. From here, you can be at London St Pancras (via Ashford) in around one hour ten minutes. Transfers can be arranged for £15 each way.
Automobiles
Tillingham is a 10-minute drive from Rye. Free parking is available at the hotel.
Worth getting out of bed for
Wine tours and tastings run daily, at a cost of £35 a person, and includes four glasses of the estate’s biodynamic wine, a guided look around the vineyard and insight into the ancient methods Tillingham employs in its winemaking. Guests can easily spend an hour or two peeking around the hotel’s walled garden, where the kitchen grows the majority of their herbs and vegetables. There are weekly yoga sessions to join (or one-to-one sessions, which can be booked with advance notice) and a host of other estate-based events that run throughout the year, from foraging and wellness days to craft courses and seminars. Outside of the estate, the ancient citadel of Rye sits 10 minutes to the south, with a picturesque marina, romantic cobblestone streets, mediaeval half-timbered houses, crafty boutiques and stay-all-day cafès. Keep an eye out (and your Kodak ready) for Mermaid Street, a historic walkway lined with charming, ivy-strewn houses with a rep as the most photographed spot in the city. For the hiking-inclined, there's a 90-minute walk from Tillingham to Rye along a public footpath through the valley. A little further south, Camber Sands is suitable for swimming, watersports, kitesurfing – and on sunnier days – picnics, although locals like to go to Pett level beach, which is more rugged but much quieter, even in the peak of summer.
Local restaurants
Over the Kent border, Kilnsdown favourite the Small Holding pleases with a hyper-seasonal menu of regional delicacies like agnolotti filled with Kentish cuttlefish; Cornish brown crab bisque with homegrown lemongrass and fermented chilli; and spiced courgette fritters, topped with Hinxden yoghurt and garden herbs. Closer to home, The Union Rye is a best-of-British restaurant housed in a quaint 15th-century building serving contemporary cuisine and cocktails.
Local cafés
Independent haunt the Fig in Rye describes itself as a ‘restcafè’. That’s somewhere between a restaurant and cafè, for the uninitiated, where folks can linger over good-for-you brunches, globally-inspired small plates, photo-worthy cocktails and ethically-sourced Monmouth coffee. Water Lanenear Hawkhurst is also worth a visit; an ancient walled garden with a vinery, Victorian glasshouses, restaurant and shop.
Local bars
Housed in an old, timber-framed building, The Standard Inn has been welcoming parched pilgrims since the 14th century, when it was a favourite watering hole for Rye’s seafaring visitors. Today, you’ll find walkers, writers, farmers and travellers occupying the inn’s characterful rooms – full of wooden beams and crackling fireplaces – all with a pint of local ale in hand. Another rustic charmer is Ypres Castle Inn, where the focus is on craft beer and cider, as well as low-intervention wines. Interiors, though traditional, are uplifted by the works of local artists, but it’s outside in the big, green beer garden where the real action takes place.
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 regenerative retreat near Rye and unpacked their haul of natural wines and Haeckel's hand cream, a full account of their tipple-happy break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Tillingham in East Sussex…
England’s green and pleasant lands just got a little bit greener thanks to Tillingham, a biodynamic vineyard and atypically à la mode boutique hotel in Rye’s rural surrounds. Here, guests can reconnect with nature among the estate’s mixed farm – home to fruit trees, ancient woodland, walled gardens and livestock – sample Sussex’s finest fare at Brendan Eades’ (Green Michelin) restaurant, and spend blanket-wrapped evenings sipping fizz beside the fire. But it’s not all Anglo-whimsy; the modish McCully and Crane-designed rooms, the bar’s industrial interiors and the estate’s unconventional tipples have more in common with Hackney than the home counties. Though crucially, Tillingham cares more about craft than trend-chasing, with an approach to food and wine that’s as light on the land as it is on the palate.
