The back story: Fittingly, for somewhere so intimately connected to the countryside it inhabits, Thyme’s story is one of slow evolution. It began when Caryn Hibbert and her husband Jerry moved to Southrop Manor in 2001 with their three young children. In 2007, their Cotswolds home became the backdrop for Thyme’s first incarnation — a cookery school, hosted in a once-derelict tithe barn, restored by Hibbert and her father. Seven years later, Thyme opened its doors as a fully-fledged hotel and its footprint has continued to grow. Today, the award-winning 31-room property includes a spa, outdoor pool, boutique shop (curated by Millie Hibbert), exhibition space and its own pub, all housed in barns, cottages and farmhouses that have occupied the surrounding land for centuries, all lovingly restored by Hibbert to create an idyllic – and inspiring – adults-only country escape, which they nickname a ‘village in a village’.
