The best hotels in Kent
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It’s been a good few years for Kent, and that’s reflected in a slew of new hotels, especially in arty Margate. Some have opened up new destinations, such as Boys Hall on the outskirts of Ashford, or Updown, which has provided a bucolic inland alternative to the seaside at nearby Deal. In 2024, expect another unlikely corner to get a boost, when The Gallivant opens a second property on Littlestone Beach, on a hitherto unheralded stretch between Dungeness and Dymchurch on the south coast. For now, here’s our list of just some of the best hotels in Kent.
Toby MitchellNo 42 by GuestHouse, Margate
The arrival of the GuestHouse boutique hotel brand – founded by the three Guest brothers and with hotels in Bath, York and soon Brighton – signals a significant step up for Margate. The town simply didn’t use to have places like this one, a smartly whimsical update of the old sea-facing Sands Hotel, which had the views right over the Main Sands but was overridingly beige. Now, guests walk off the High St past bistro curtains into a space that feels almost Balearic, with linen basket lampshades; and on into the plush, faintly Art Deco Pearly Cow restaurant, where the oysters, lobster rolls and signature beef tartare look over the sand and sea. Rooms are softly playful, with squiggly freehand murals, shell-like lamps and hot drinks hidden in little miniature beach huts (a twist on a brand signature) – with curated vinyl records from the local Ghost Papa store. Upstairs, the rooftop bar will come into its own come summer, while the lower floor is home to the Field Trip’s treatment rooms, copper bath and beach-facing cafe. With dog-friendly rooms and a library of kids’ books, this is a pan-generational people-pleaser in just about the best spot in town.
Address: No 42 by GuestHouse, 42 High Street, Margate CT9 1DS
Price: Doubles from £127.50
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Updown Farmhouse, near Deal
Of the many new Kent restaurants with rooms (Boys Hall, The Pig at Bridge Place), few are as serious or creative about food as Updown, a restored 17th-century farmhouse in seven-and-a-half acres of deliberately unmanicured walled gardens inland from Deal. Owners Oli Brown and Ruth Leigh met at Le Cafe Anglais in Bayswater, and left serious London food careers to live the good life under the beams of this Grade II-listed beauty. Their six-room modern farmhouse makeover is striking enough: dramatic swathes of blue, orange and pink in the public spaces; earthier tones in cool yet slouchy rooms; brightly mismatched contemporary art throughout. But it’s out in the vine-covered, festoon-lit pergola restaurant that things get really fun. In one corner, Brown – known in part as the founder of Brixton Cantonese Duck Duck Goose – cooks over an open fire, almost caveman-style, turning out pork rillettes or hearty lamb rack cassoulets, as well as dishes like lasagne with pumpkin, taleggio and truffle, with steak night and roasts. With a great drinks list and a tangible sense of eating in nature, there aren’t many more atmospheric dining spots in Kent.
Address: Updown Road, Betteshanger, Deal CT14 0EF
Price: Doubles from £190
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Margate House
A bit like the Fort Road Hotel, Margate House is another that shows the town’s new creative confidence. A nine-room townhouse on Cliftonville’s once-grand Dalby Square, up the hill from the Old Town, it was done up by owner Will Jenkins, who runs a property management company in London and has also bought a nearby building to rent as apartments. With the door usually open to the square and emanating luxurious scents, the colour scheme is predominantly pink, terracotta and burgundy, with vintage Polish posters on the walls. A lot is shoppable, from pop art landscapes by local artist Jemma Rowe to the whimsical ceramic candlesticks from the L’Absurde gallery store in town (they also supply the sublime Vyrao scents). Each floor has three tactile rooms in small, medium and large, with the bigger ones looking out over square and sea. Haeckels products, Roberts radios and thoughtful novels have become de rigeur in these parts, and there’s also a cool mini guide to the town, as well as what’s shoppable in the hotel. Jenkins has paid for gardeners to come and spruce up the square, which was home to some of the grandest B&Bs in town until the tourists departed sometime around the 70s. He’s clearly got a passion for the place, and especially the new energy in Cliftonville, which is buzzing with new bars and cafes.
Address: Margate House, 6 Dalby Square, CT9 2ER
Price: Doubles from £140
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Boys Hall, Ashford
The very existence of Boys Hall is scarcely believable – between a rail track and an industrial estate on the edge of Ashford, which doesn’t exactly trouble many lists of England’s prettiest towns. And yet this exquisite renovation of a wonky-beamed 1616 building in the Kentish Welden Hall style feels like a world unto itself, exuding both stately style and unpretentious warmth. So much of that comes from owners Brad and Kristie Lomas (she was raised here before moving to London), who found a house sagging under wisteria and turned it into apartments and have created nine lovely rooms and a serious locavore restaurant. Their welcome, and that of their lovely staff, infuses every slouchy sofa and Samuel Pepys portrait, and Kristie’s eye is behind smart rooms where roll-top baths and convex mirrors are offset by clouds of dried flowers and curving paisley headboards. It’s easy to feel at home curled up by the fire in the old living room, while the restaurant menu reads like a Kentish greatest hits, with venison and pork chops from local farms and a decent list of regional wines – a particular passion of Brad, who has collaborated with Wine Tours of Kent on local wine tours. With its walled garden and plans for more rooms on the grounds and former stables, this doesn’t just feel like the revival of a sagging heritage building, but the birth of Kent’s neglected heartland as a destination.
Address: Boys Hall, Boys Hall Road, Willesborough, Ashford TN24 0LA
Price: Doubles from £180
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ED REEVEFort Road Hotel, Margate
To say that The Fort Road Hotel appeals across the spectrum – to queer artists, space-loving Baby Boomers, gentrification-weary locals – would suggest a sort of people-pleasing uniformity. In fact, the hotel’s appeal is that it is resolutely, almost timelessly itself; a coolly refined instant classic, its innards and iconic facade painstakingly rescued from near-dereliction. Reception happens casually in the tiled Viennese-elegant bistro restaurant, where the hotel’s owners can sometimes be spied eating potted duck or dressed brown crab on Thonet chairs: Ramsgate-based artist Tom Gidley, Frieze co-founder Matthew Slotover and designer-developer Gabriel Chipperfiled, whose father David designed the Turner Contemporary across the road. In the two-floor basement bar, the unfinished industrial vibe is offset by crisply twisted classic cocktails, a striking bust by the London artist Matthew Darbyshire and a Tracey Emin neon in one of its nooks. The 14 rooms all share a tactile mid-century vibe, with eclectic art and Scandi nods in the Louis Poulsen pendant lights and Hay kettles. Many have views across the gallery’s glacial-sharp lines to the Main Sands and the sunsets that Turner himself painted. But the real sign of the hotel’s success is that it’s become an active local haunt, where you might spy gallerist Carl Freedman and his podcast pal Russell Tovey on the way to a book talk in the basement bar, or a summer gathering on the rooftop. This is the new Margate, elevated beyond seaside pastiche and Shoreditch-On-Sea cliche.
Address: Fort Road Hotel, 18 Fort Road, Margate CT9 1HF
Price: Doubles from £154
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Jake EasthamThe Pig at Bridge Place, Canterbury
Set in a 17th-century manor, this hideout, from the cult brand that changed the face of British country-house hotels, is the sexiest and closest to London. Set in five acres intersected by the burbling tributaries of the Nailbourne River, the pretty red-brick Jacobean exterior belies a saucy past. This former family home once doubled as a notorious nightclub, with naughty secret passageways. It hit its zenith in the 1960s and 1970s when setlists included Led Zeppelin and The Kinks. Seven bedrooms in the main house best reflect this ageing rock-chick persona: golden four-poster beds set against blackened denim walls; a bathroom squirrelled away through a wardrobe door here and an original stucco cherub ceiling there. The dozen rooms in the coach house have a more garden-fresh feel with botanical prints and William Morris wallpaper. In the restaurant, the classic 25-mile-radius Pig menu includes reassuringly familiar dishes (that crackling with apple sauce) and focuses on local produce. By Gabriella Le Breton
The Pig at Bridge Place hotel review
Address: The Pig at Bridge Place, Bourne Park Road, Bridge, Canterbury CT4 5BH
Price: Doubles from £145
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The Rose, Deal
Once a townhouse pub in the classic seaside town of Deal, The Rose quickly became the main draw for out-of-towners when it opened a few years ago. It’s the smartest place to stay here: bold colours and nods to the seaside location (shell-print wallpaper, portraits of captains hanging above vintage dressers) dominate the individually decorated bedrooms. Antique beds have been reupholstered with Liberty fabrics, and there are record players – plus the vinyls to play on them – and stacks of books all around. And the bar and restaurant is overseen by Rachel O’Sullivan, previously of East London’s Towpath Café, guaranteeing a brilliant supper of brown-butter-roasted brill with onions or confit leg of duck with smoked beetroot.
Address: The Rose, 91 High Street, Deal CT14 6ED
Price: Doubles from £125
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Rebecca DouglasElmley Nature Reserve, Isle of Sheppey
With its 3,300 acres spread across the south side of Kent’s Isle of Sheppey, Elmley has been the UK’s only family-owned national nature reserve since the 1980s. Back then, rewilding – the act of regenerating landscapes to encourage thriving wildlife – wasn’t at the top of many farmers’ agendas. Philip Merricks persevered here, becoming a pioneer in conserving the countryside, and now these marshes are home to rare birdlife. Merricks’s daughter took over the land more recently, opening up a restored farmhouse B&B and a cluster of smart shepherd huts. This is the only national nature reserve in Britain that you can spend the night at: take over a cosy cabin or a bell tent and wake with the sun to see flocks of lapwings swooping overhead.
Address: Elmley Nature Reserve, Elmley, Minster on Sea, Isle of Sheppey ME12 3RW
Price: Cabins from £180 per night (sleeps four)
Book your stayRead about more stays in the UK that contribute to conservation projects
The Albion Rooms, Margate
This once-shabby B&B by the sea has been given a serious facelift by a curious band of hoteliers – indie group The Libertines. Set on Margate’s Eastern Esplanade, the five-storey guest house is now a punk-meets-Victorian hideout for music lovers and weekenders seeking out a smart stay. Sure, some touches will remind you of the property’s unique ownership – Pete Doherty’s poetry framed and hung on the crocodile-print walls, a recording studio – but there are also seven decadent bedrooms and a clever restaurant helmed by Gordon Ramsay-trained chef Joe Hill, who creates surprising tasting menus.
Address: The Albion Rooms, 31 Eastern Esplanade, Cliftonville, Margate CT9 2HL
Price: Doubles from £230
Book your stayRead our full review of the Albion Rooms
Ollie HarropThe Reading Rooms, Margate
Set in a five-storey Georgian townhouse in Kent’s quirkiest seaside settlement, the laidback Reading Rooms are packed with original, meticulously restored details. This place was built in the 18th century as a guesthouse for Londoners fleeing the city and still has the feel of a secret escape. Floor-to-ceiling sash windows overlook the seafront, there are exposed fireplaces in the two white-washed bedrooms, and polished chandeliers hang above smooth parquet floors. This B&B doesn’t force guests to make small talk, either – breakfast is served in your room whenever you fancy. The Grade II-listed building is just a five-minute stroll from the blustery oceanfront and charming old town, where the Turner Contemporary gallery has sparked an exciting arts scene over the past few years.
Address: The Reading Rooms, 31 Hawley Square, Margate, Kent, CT9 1PH
Price: Doubles from £160
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Albion House, Ramsgate
An imposing Regency townhouse set high on Ramsgate’s East Cliff above the Royal Harbour, this place was owned by Mary Townley, an architect and socialite, in the first half of the 19th century – Princess Victoria stayed for six months to recover from what was thought to be typhoid. Her donkeys came too and were kept in a pleasure garden nearby. Present-day owners the Irvines have kept some quirky details: the former mayor's chamber is now the Town Bar and his long desk, with nickel-plated sliding inkwells intact, has been recycled as the bar counter. But they have also given it a contemporary edge with smoky green walls, pendant lights and plenty of fresh-cut flowers. Some of the 14 bedrooms (12 with sea views) are modest, tucked under the eaves; others are large and bright with rows of sash windows. In the bar, cocktails are served in sturdy tumblers and there's a simple menu of salads (heritage tomato and mozzarella; purple sprouting broccoli, beetroot and butternut squash). Food in the high-ceilinged, navy-blue restaurant is wholesome (whitebait with lemon aioli; a rosemary rack of lamb with dauphinoise potatoes), and pancakes with home-cured bacon and homemade banana bread are served at breakfast. By Tabitha Joyce
Address: Albion House, Albion Place, Ramsgate CT11 8HQ
Price: Doubles from £135, including breakfast
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Laura EdwardsBelvidere Place, Broadstairs
A well-proportioned Georgian townhouse a few blocks uphill from the seafront, this is more a home-from-home than a hotel. From the Dickensian gloom of the hallway, bare stairs wind up to five bedrooms split across two floors. The sitting room could be an eccentric antiques shop. And there's a lot going on: fairy lights, tongue-in-cheek Union Jacks, vintage games (table football, anyone?). Rarely has the word eclectic seemed more apt. The Grade II-listed property had been run as an old-school B&B since the 1940s. There are two large double rooms, two smaller ones, each one different to the next. Breakfast is served on a refectory table in the dining room, beside a blazing fire in the winter. Stroll to the sandy beach on Viking Bay and take in clifftop views from the town's traditional seaside gardens. On the Thanet Coastal Path, you can continue south for two miles to Ramsgate or north to surfy Joss Bay and the chalk stacks of Botany Bay. By Lesley Gillilan
Address: Belvidere Place, 43 Belvedere Road, Broadstairs CT10 1PF
Price: Doubles from £125
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