With the feel of a private club rather than a hotel, this 'very special place' lies behind the 18th-century facade of three shop-houses in a once-notorious area that is now filled with hip eateris and bars. Peter McKay and Douglas Blain had the property gutted and refitted, with salvaged mahogany panelling and old stair treads for an authentic creak, then filled the interiors with antiques, books, portraits, artefacts. 'The beautiful Georgian restoration is filled with historical detail and brought alive by the stories of past inhabitants.' Bedrooms have names, not numbers. Ground-floor Dr Theophilus Garencières has a carved oak four-poster, a separate sitting area. The emerald-green Rook's Nest has a hand-painted four-poster, an old-fangled bathing contraption on a plinth, stairs to a sitting room with a lawyer's writing desk. All rooms have vintage bathroom fittings, a freestanding bath or powerful shower, air conditioning, a minibar and TV (here, as at London sister hotels Hazlitt's and Batty Langley's, verisimilitude has its limits). 'Our room was quiet and spacious with a good-sized bathroom (and capacious bath).' You can order from a 24-hour room-service menu and take the sun in a leafy patio garden among stone urns and cherubs. (FT)