The best UK breaks from a train station
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We’re often hard on our trains in this country. We don’t have smart bars serving pretzels and Pilsners like they do in Germany, or double-decker TGVs like they have in France. But we often forget just how far the UK’s rail system can take us, and with minimal fuss. More than that, how civilised it is to travel by train; to watch Britain slide by over the top of a newspaper or a magazine. Unlike motorways, which feel utterly removed from nature, the train seems to glide through unperturbed cityscapes and landscapes, usually dropping us right in the heart of a place. It’s friendlier to the environment too, which is why the Swedes who coined flygskam (flight-shaming) also coined tagskryt (train-bragging). We wouldn’t recommend bragging, but if you must, here are just some of the finest British destinations reached by train.
Getty ImagesBroadstairs, Kent
Best for: bygone beach days
Sample journey: St Pancras–Broadstairs: 1 hour 21 minutes
Of all the buzzed-about spots along the Kent coast, Broadstairs still provides the most perfect vision of a day at the beach. There’s a bygone feel to sandy Viking Bay, with its Victorian beach huts, swings and the ghost of a funicular, with views above the charming harbour to the fort-like Bleak House made famous by Dickens. While some of the dining options are similarly classic, such as the Thirties Morelli’s gelato parlour on the clifftop, there’s also a foodie scene in a town where restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin regularly raves about her local haunts. The nearby beaches of Kingsgate and Botany Bay are two of the most wildly beautiful in Kent, with their chalk cliffs and stacks feeling like a proper escape.
**Where to eat:**For lunch, either the wonderful fritto misto at the harbourside Flotsam & Jetsam, a new hole-in-the-wall from seafood stalwarts Wyatt and Jones; or the Squid and Nancy roll from The Table, surely Kent’s coolest deli. For dinner, whatever chef Ben Crittenden gives you at tiny Stark, recipient of the area’s only Michelin star (neither Margate nor Ramsgate have any yet).
Where to stay: Broadstairs House is a B&B in a four-storey Victorian building that feels like staying with a friend. You could also combine with a trip to Margate – a walk or cycle along the coast – where the Libertines-owned Albion Rooms and mod-Georgian Reading Rooms have more of an edge than anything in Broadstairs.
Getty ImagesAberystwyth
Best for: sea views from the train
Sample journey: Euston-Birmingham-Shrewsbury-Machynlleth-Aberystwyth: 5 hours 35 minutes
The train route to Aberystwyth is far from the quickest, at least from London, but it’s one of the prettiest anywhere in the UK, the Cambrian Line from Shrewsbury running through the rolling Cambrian Mountains and along Cardigan Bay on Wales’s west coast, taking in rare sea views. With its Victorian pier and electric cliff railway, Aberystywyth doesn’t immediately feel like the Welsh Biarritz, as the old moniker goes. But there’s a slow-burn charm here – from the university, the growing food scene and, counterintuitively, from the town’s appearance in Welsh detective drama Hinterland. That’s before you get to exploring the estuaries and thrillingly wild beaches of the Cardigan coast.
Where to stay: Overlooking the pier, Gwesty Cymru is an old-school seafront hotel with a restaurant serving local seafood. The smartest stay around is Nanteos, a grand Georgian country house hotel surrounded by woodland to the east of town.
Where to eat: While the fish and chips is great at Central Fish Restaurant, Aberystwyth’s foodie buzz has been around more cosmopolitan fare: Spanish deli Ultracomida’s bacalao and crab croquettes, in a space that feels almost like Barcelona, and Ottolenghi-style sumac king prawns and lamb pastillaat airy, wooden-floored Medina.
AlamyBath
Best for: Regency romance
Sample journey: Paddington-Bath Spa: 1 hour 18 minutes
Lusted after by Romans, Georgians and 2021 TV producers – there aren’t many weekend destinations in the UK to match Bath. For all that it’s about its ancient baths and sweeping Georgian terraces which have recently appeared in Bridgerton and The Pursuit of Love, there’s also a more modern edge to this cobbled city. There’s both playfulness and sophistication to homeware stores such as richly textured Nam or mid-century specialists Eight Holland Street, as well as art spaces such as the Korean-inspired Francis Gallery by furniture maker Fred Rigby and Cereal magazine co-founder Rosa Park.
Where to stay: The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa if you want to experience lovingly restored modern Georgian, albeit with an ambitiously theatrical restaurant; or No.15 Great Pulteney for a more modern twist on the theme, with the 37 one-off rooms featuring curiosities such as a chandelier made of lost earrings.
Where to eat: The informal Clayton’s Kitchen is all about inventive British classics from Robert Clayton, who earned a Michelin star each for Hunstrete House Hotel (now The Pig near Bath) and The Bath Priory. The driftwood-industrial Scallop Shell is a turbo-charged fish-and-chip shop with a fish stew with fluffy chips and homemade aioli that’s worth the train journey alone.
Getty ImagesCambridge
Best for: sophisticated varsity vibes
Sample journey: King’s Cross-Cambridge: 49 minutes
Easily reached from the capital, Cambridge has quietly become rather exciting – for punting and quadrangles, of course, but also for its vaccine studies and some of Britain’s most exciting tech companies. There’s hard-won knowledge going into gentler pursuits here too: the Tobacco Old-Fashioneds from a hand-scribbled menu at the wonderful 196 Cocktail Bar, or ‘the world’s stickiest’ Chelsea buns at the popular Fitzbillies bakery, founded in 1920. The real beauty of Cambridge is that there are stories and ideas everywhere you look – not just in the doorways Nabokov described as waypoints to the past, but in the fact that you might just be drinking your Bould Brothers coffee next to a Nobel laureate.
Where to stay: The 2018 reopening of the famous 192-room University Arms made a statement about the new Cambridge. Interior designer Martin Brudnizki (Annabel’s, The Ivy, Dean Street Townhouse) has brought a lush modern take on Edwardiana, while the old Parker’s Tavern has been reborn as an eccentric but brilliant restaurant under Petrus alum Tristan Welch.
Where to eat: Tradition be damned (or at least reinterpreted): try ‘gut-friendly’ vegan restaurant Stem & Glory, opening at a new site in June, for creative bourguignons, bao buns and kimchi pancakes.
Getty ImagesMallaig/Corrour, Scotland
Best for: grandstanding nature
Sample journey: Glasgow Queen Street–Mallaig: 5 hours 20 minutes
There can’t be many more beautiful train journeys in the UK than this one up the west coast to Mallaig, across the water from Skye, via Oban and Fort William. Passing Loch Lomond and the aptly named Loch Awe on the way to Oban, the train then stops at Corrour – Britain’s highest station, its bleak rolling moorlands immortalised in Trainspotting – and then snakes across the Glenfinnan viaduct that doesn’t actually lead to Hogwarts. The little fishing town of Mallaig is more a jumping-off point than a destination – from here, the best of the Highlands and islands are within striking distance, including Skye and the gorgeous Small Isles of Eigg, Rum and Muck on the ferry. We’d probably recommend hiring a car or maybe an e-bike in Mallaig, but Skye is also one of those rare places where it’s still just about safe to hitch-hike.
Where to stay: The best local stays are on Skye. Kinloch Lodge is a quintessential hunting lodge soaked in Macdonald clan history, offering gillie-led stalking, roaring fires and Scottish seafood; or The Cabin, a timber-clad and glassy Scandi-style eco-lodge with a green roof.
Where to eat: In Mallaig, The Cabin exists in a happy intersection between chippie and bistro, known for its local langoustines and serious seafood platters. On Skye, the Three Chimneys restaurant with rooms is a locavore legend, with the devilled pigeon, hake with nettle sauce or halibut with mussel butter coming from no further than the nearby island of Gigha.
AlamyMalton, Yorkshire
Best for: a taste of ‘God’s own country’
Sample journey: King’s Cross-York-Malton: 2 hours 24 minutes
The market town of Malton, in the Yorkshire Wolds between Scarborough and York, once looked to the Romans for its glory days. But now its higgledy-piggledy streets are abuzz, thanks in no small part to energetic local aristocrat Tom Naylor-Leyland. He has helped style Malton as Yorkshire’s food capital – by enticing butchers, bakers and distillers to the town again, and laying on an ever-more popular festival championing local produce, which will return this August. The town that inspired Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is lovely enough, as are its surrounds, with the exquisite Castle Howard to the south and the North York Moors to the north.
Where to stay: The Talbot, owned by the Naylor-Leylands, is a handsome coaching inn given a smart boho makeover by Georgie and Sam Pearman of the Lucky Onion group. The food in the old pub is excellent, from bone-in Yorkshire Shorthorn beef and Whitby cockles to devilled kidneys on sourdough.
Where to eat: It’s worth doing one of Tom’s food tours for a true sense of Made In Malton, from the sourdoughs of the Bluebird Bakery to the local Rare Bird gin and passionate local butcher Paul Potts. The New Malton is another great gastropub in a listed building, serving serious pies and home-made chips.
Getty ImagesPenzance, Cornwall
Best for: a salty escape
Sample journey: Paddington–Penzance overnight
For all its charm, Cornwall has never been easy to get to from London, by road or conventional rail. But the Night Riviera sleeper train is a civilised way to do it, rolling into Penzance just in time for breakfast. While Land’s End and wild-turquoise Porthcurno beach are just round England’s south-westerly peninsula, sea-blown Penzance is a worthy destination in its own right, from the exquisite Art Deco Jubilee Pool lido to cool galleries such as The Exchange. The once-scruffy town has been on the up for a while now, with cool new stays to rival nearby St Ives, and seafood to rival Padstow up the coast.
Where to stay: The six-room Chapel House, a gorgeous Georgian townhouse given an elegant makeover by former charity exec Susan Stuart, who cooks a serious Full English; or the 16-room Artist Residence Penzance just down Chapel Street, all driftwood-boho and itself a sign of Penzance’s emergence.
Where to eat: The spartan interior of The Shore, run by former Restaurant Martin Wishart head chef Bruce Rennie, means there's extra focus on the obsessively sourced seafood. In adjacent Newlyn, the pretty old Tolcarne Inn is headed up by Ben Tunnicliffe, the Michelin-toting local answer to Rick Stein or Nathan Outlaw, who is almost as serious about jazz as he is Cornish seafood.
AlamyRye/Camber, East Sussex
Best for: olde England with an edge
Sample journey: St Pancras–Ashford-Rye: 1 hour 9 minutes
There’s a dashing of chocolate-box England to this Norman citadel on a hill, with its town crier and Hovis-quaint Mermaid Street – yet there’s also a liveliness and edge to spots such as bakery-with-rooms Whitehouse Rye and Alex MacArthur Interiors, with its off-the-wall chandeliers and giant mirrors in a one-time monastery. Nearby Camber Sands, with its marram-grass dunes and kite-surfers, is one of the most beautiful stretches of beaches within easy striking distance of London – making this an all-round gem of a weekend away.
Where to stay: The three-bedroom Mint in Rye is an exquisite conversion of a 15th-century building – Tudor done with style – while The George on the High Street was Rye’s first smart boutique hotel, with an excellent locavore restaurant. In Camber, there’s a Californian vibe to the low-slung Gallivant, almost touching the dunes and the beach.
Where to eat: Webbe’s at the Fish Café, in a converted red-brick warehouse, is the place for local fish stews and Rye scallop ceviche, while The Union is a fuss-free gastropub in a timber-beamed medieval building, known for its exquisite 28-day-aged steaks from nearby Park Farm.Like this? Now read: