Broadway, Worcestershire · Hotel
A 14th-century coaching inn on Broadway high street, with a spa, log fires and a guest list that runs from Charles I to Elizabeth Taylor.
The Lygon Arms sits squarely on Broadway's wide honey-stone high street and has been taking in travellers for something like 600 years. The oldest parts of the building date to the fourteenth century, and the history is not window dressing: both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell are recorded as having stayed here during the Civil War, in rooms you can still book. Later it became a favourite of visiting film stars, which is roughly when it acquired its reputation as the grandest address in the north Cotswolds.
Rooms are split between the original inn and quieter garden wings. The historic rooms have the beams, the uneven floors and the four-posters; the newer ones are lighter and more conventionally comfortable, with better bathrooms and more space. Families tend to prefer the latter, couples the former. Ask about aspect when you book, as a few of the front rooms look onto the high street rather than the gardens.
The spa is the main modern addition and a genuine reason to choose the hotel over other Broadway options: an indoor pool, sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, a fitness studio and seven treatment rooms. There are two places to eat, a formal dining room in the medieval Great Hall with its barrel-vaulted ceiling and minstrels' gallery, and a more relaxed bar and grill. Both lean towards British cooking with local suppliers.
It suits people who want the historic-inn experience without giving up modern comforts, and it works particularly well as a walking base since Broadway Tower and the Cotswold Way are directly uphill from the village. Guest scores hover around 8.8 out of 10. Rates start near 180 pounds a night and rise steeply for summer weekends and for the named historic rooms, so book well ahead if either matters to you.