Arthur Frommer Online: At stately homes throughout England, you can enjoy bed and breakfast -- and the company of extraordinary Brits -- for £40 per night

Aug 3, 2007

At stately homes throughout England, you can enjoy bed and breakfast -- and the company of extraordinary Brits -- for £40 per night

exterior image of The Old Vicarage, Derbyshire

A "luxury B&B" may sound like an oxymoron, but that's exactly what's offered by a British company called Wolsey Lodges that puts you up in assorted mansions, small palaces, and amazingly lavish carriage houses. And there you'll meet a remarkable range of English and Scottish "home owners:" a retired don of Oxford University; a real estate broker who once served with the Tenth Hussars Regiment of the British Army; the business manager for a renowned duchess; an intensely contemporary theatrical agent spending weekdays in London's West End, but weekends at his Dorset home.

Most of these people are land rich but cash poor, which is why they take paying guests into their homes. Whatever the reason, they regard their own
company and conversation as part of the quid pro quo for your payment, and nearly all of them also offer you the extra-charge option of taking dinner in their homes.

You'll find all the information at www.wolseylodges.com, which runs long lists with photos and descriptions of the stately homes in which lodging is available through their auspices and in every major area of the British Isles. As you scan them, you'll occasionally find a particularly grand mansion whose charges are higher than £40 ($80) per person per night, but the great majority are exactly that much and occasionally a little less, always including a colossal, traditional English breakfast. You can make your bookings by phoning Wolsey Lodges at tel. 011-44-1473-822058 or by phoning the individual stately homes at the numbers listed for each one.

Write and read comments about this post.

Labels: accommodations, england