You can now stay in a cottage at Walmer Castle in Kent, where the Queen Mother
liked to holiday, courtsey of English Heritage - which this year is opening
up eight more cottages for rent.
Or you could sleep under the barreled-roof of a lock cottage on the South
Stratford Canal, newly available for rent from the Landmark Trust, which is
also opening another cottage, in Bedfordshire.
All three are newly available in 2007. And they are being joined by dozens
more properties as Britain's heritage custodians rapidly open up their
castles and towers to tourists.
It works for all: we get a far greater choice of quality, idiosyncratic
holiday homes in great locations, while the country's heritage guardians
receive more income and the satisfaction of showing off their work to more
and sundry.
English
Heritage only started renting out cottages last year, with five
properties including the Sgt Major's House at Dover Castle. This year is has
added eight more, having found an incredible rental appetite for its
properties, which meant they were some 90 per cent full in 2006.
Its cottage at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight, is booked out 18 months in
advance, understandably exciting the good folk at EH, which now plans to
open 30 cottages for rent by the end of next year.
It's possibly the most exciting development in British tourism. I myself
stayed at a Landmark
Trust Martello fort in Suffolk two years ago for a wedding. It was a
weekend in February but we still had to book months in advance to secure the
property. And it was a great success, becoming party central on the open
roof for two nights.
I want to stay in more and have earmarked John Betjeman's former London home
in Cloth Fair (Landmark Trust) this year. Also attractive is the Jacobean
brick tower at Blicking Hall, Norfolk, which is new from National
Trust Cottages, as is Portbraddan Cottage within the Giant’s Causeway,
an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Northern Ireland.
The National Trust has 13 new cottages this year to add to its portfolio of
350; Landmark Trust adds two to its collection of 184 and English Heritage
has grown to 13 cottages. A fourth body, the Vivat
Trust , also has 12 rentals in historic buildings.
And the growth of quality holiday rentals doesn't stop there. The Youth Hostel
Association, now referred to simply as the YHA,
has for some years been upgrading its properties. A travel article in The
Times two years ago described its properties as "simplicity with
style."
This year, the brand new £3m YHA Abbey House is opening in Whitby, North
Yorkshire and another in at Moira, East Midlands which will be the third of
its "green beacon" hostels, an eco-friendly centre in national
forest. Meanwhile, work continues on YHA London Central in the City of
Westminster.
What with B&Bs rapidly upgrading their product, the choice of quality
British holiday accommodation has never looked so attractive.
Fancy a night in the tower or castle?