The UK’s most stirring art scenes are by no means confined to the Big Smoke. Over the past decade, evocative pockets of the countryside and burgeoning market towns seem to have clawed in more artworks and artists than central London. There’s less noise, less competition and achingly beautiful landscape and architecture to draw inspiration from, hang prints and erect installations against, not to mention the cheaper studio rents.
There’s also the British knack for easing old Georgian or Victorian bones into the 21st century with cutting-edge contemporary art — like an old dame donning a jarring pair of specs. These galleries-with-rooms are luring a cultured bunch into the sticks for arty weekend jaunts, the sort that go hand in hand with farm-to-fork grub.
Here are the top art hotels to check into this year.
Hauser & Wirth with Durslade Farmhouse, Somerset
Ever since Hauser & Wirth’s futuristic gallery landed in the postcard-pretty Bruton in 2014, the medieval Somerset town began to morph into something beyond a Jane Austin film set. West London’s movers and shakers started snapping up wisteria-covered piles (such as George Osborne and Cameron Mackintosh), bestowing it with its Notting Hill-on-Brue moniker, and an already present artisanal scene was given the attention, direction, and funding it needed to flourish. Art lovers heading to Bruton can make a full weekend of their Hauser & Wirth pilgrimage. The sequence goes a little something like this: having gawped at Hauser & Wirth’s current exhibition (Gruppenausstellung, which explores co-owners’ Iwan and Manuela Wirth’s Swiss roots through the works of 20 artists), admired its landscaped gardens and surrounding meadows and scoffed an organic spread, washed down with Somerset ciders at the Roth Bar & Grill, guests can slink off to Durslade Farmhouse, into its art-scattered historic rooms, choreographed by Luis Laplace. This curious cocktail of go-slow, bucolic Somerset, modern art and moreish plough-to-plate food has seen Damien Lewis and Benedict Cumberbatch choose Bruton for their weekend city escape, and the fashion set — Stella McCartney, Phoebe Philo, Solange Azagury-Partridge — to fully drop anchor here.
£500, dursladefarmhouse.co.uk
Chapel House, Penzance
Ex-banker and avid art collector Susan Stuart left the rat race and headed as far south west from her city desk as she possibly could, to Penzance, where she set about restoring a storybook admiral’s house keeping watch over the harbour. Stuart stayed true to the building’s fine Georgian bones and maritime history, whitewashing the sweeping rooms to gallery-like effect, then peppering the walls with works from local artists and the Newlyn School of Art — the latter involving a rotating exhibition in the entrance hall, with viewing evenings for guests and artists each time the works change over. Edged into these white light-filled spaces with minimalist intent is a deftly-curated raft of mahogany furniture, a grand piano, four-poster beds and the odd antique trinket. In one sitting room, an imposing mahogany dresser warms a corner otherwise kept coastal-fresh with white lampshades, a seascape oil painting by Kate Jamieson and cream linen sofas. In the attic bedroom, a playful contemporary print sits above a burnt orange sofa and a retractable roof peels back to the star-studded Cornish night sky. The whitewash gives way to flagstones and coastal blues on the lower floor, where Phil Ward’s vibrant paintings wake up the walls and Susan leverages Cornish land-and-sea treasures for a low-key, high-spec farmhouse-kitchen-style supper. Art enthusiasts can plan their day here the following morning over smoothie, smoked bacon and samphire feasts, with Penzance a cobbled playground of art-on-sea independent galleries, boutiques and cool coffee shops (the sort that have lured Harry Styles, Michael Eavis and even Tom Cruise into its salty, slightly shabby embrace).
£180, chapelhousepz.co.uk
No. 42 by GuestHouse, Margate
A rundown seaside town resuscitated by a flurry of creatives and East London foodies, Margate’s slightly dishevelled charms have seduced Harry Styles, among a raft of celebrities and artists, and is the setting for Lily Allen’s Sky drama Dreamland. GuestHouse Hotels have moved in on the creative Kent coast action to open No.42 by GuestHouse, Margate this summer, leveraging the abundance of creative talent within the local community. Laura Ann Coates’s cultish murals frame each bed, Nat Maks and other Kent coast artists’ works dot the walls of the rooms and lobby, and the hotel is making its art credentials known with the sponsorship of the inaugural Margate Art Prize, judged by Tracey Emin and in partnership with the Ramsay & Williams gallery.
£155, guesthousehotels.co.uk
The Gunton Arms, Norfolk
A toasty, ruddy-faced British pub with an arty edge, The Gunton Arms has managed to keep its rural, Old England soul intact while filling its brooding walls and spitting flame spirit with brow-raising contemporary artworks. In this sense, art dealer Ivor Braka was a trailblazer, one of the few who has successfully edged modern art into the rituals and rhythms of rural England. It is (thankfully) as far removed from the Soho Farmhouse varnish as possible, with the late Robert Kime’s interiors echoing Norfolk’s misty, melancholic landscape, the ceiling beams gnarled by the centuries and weekenders’ lips chapped from dog walks through the dunes and vast, windswept beaches. They quench their thirst on no-nonsense local ales in the bar, where Edwin Landseer’s The Monarch of the Glen print hangs above the fireplace. A Harland Miller print animates a corner near the snooker table, and beneath it, an abstracted picture by Mat Collishaw (thrust into the art limelight in the Nineties by Emin and Hirst). The Elk room (where steaks are charred on an open fire) is dominated by the fossilised skull of a giant Irish elk, and next door in the chalet, a Steve McQueen neon ‘Remember Me’ sign above the fireplace honours a young Caribbean fisherman who met a violent death.
£99, theguntonarms.co.uk
The Fife Arms, Cairngorms
When art power couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth took over an old Victorian coaching inn on the fringes of the wildly remote and rugged Cairngorms, the city’s cognoscenti made haste for the border. Awaiting them, after a five-year refresh, was a 46-room relic of Victoriana Scotland teeming with 14,000 pieces of antiques, collectors’ pieces and specially commissioned artworks. Highlights include a contribution from Queen Victoria herself (a watercolour of a stag shot by John Brown), a late Picasso (a cubist oil painting of his muse and lover, Françoise Gilot), a Louise Bourgeois spider lurking menacingly in the courtyard, a striking portrait of the artist Tim Behrens by Lucian Freud, and Mark Bradford’s zany reimagining of a Steinway piano.
£250, fifearms.com
Heckfield Place, Hampshire
Not far from London, Heckfield Place is a rural, red-brick sanctuary of artisanal, earthy design layered in linens, peachy brick and provocative art. The handsome, slightly austere building’s Georgian symmetry, imposing walls and grand staircases have been stripped of the formality and dated deference characterising many of the UK’s country-seats-turned-hotels, and recast with blushes, botanical hues and a spot of drama from vast, veined marble fireplaces. Gerald Chan, owner and billionaire private-equity titan, has woven his own art collection into the subdued mix – including contemporary Scottish works and, even, old-fashioned milking stools. British photographer Elsbeth Juda’s fashion photography fills numerous frames above the sweeping staircase (Juda photographed Winston Churchill and Henry Moore); a large oil painting by artist Wilfred Gabriel DeGlehn (whose work explored the effect of light) ‘Jane Austin in Beige + Hat’ is a playful spin on the typical drawing room portrait; and a large watercolour seascape by Peckham-born Gary Bunt livens up the vanilla walls in Skye Gyngell’s Marle restaurant. Here (and in the exposed brick Hearth), the renowned zero-waste chef has spun a seasonal menu from the surrounding countryside, with dishes such as pork tenderloin with gooseberries and crab salad with elderflower. Naturally, it’s a hit with London society – the Delevingne sisters have been spotted here, along with actress Liv Tyler and journalist (and social butterfly) Derek Blasberg.
