The Best Hotels to Book Near Belvoir Castle

Set within 475 acres (192ha) of Lincolnshire parkland, this upmarket golf resort feels like a modern reinterpretation of an English country house. The building looks out across rolling lawns and two PGA-approved golf courses; there’s a spa and health club, and stylish, subtle rooms have an early mid-century feel. It’s worth upgrading to a superior room for fairway views or woodland scenery and lots of wooden furniture. For more stately home adventures, Belton House, a National Trust property, sits just across the A607.

The village has almost absorbed Allington Manor, but enough grounds surround this handsome, double-gabled Jacobean mansion to maintain an air of exclusivity and seclusion. The oldest parts of the house date back to 1450, and an ancient dog-leg staircase sweeps guests upstairs to rooms full of period details like William Morris wallpaper, roll-top tubs and open fireplaces. Even the servants’ rooms under the eaves have been reborn as stylish bedrooms, in keeping with the building’s rich history.

Blink and you’d miss the village of Knipton, which is just how locals like it. On the edge of the village, the substantial, brick-built Manners Arms is a genteel country retreat, with a heart-warming menu of traditional British cuisine, served in an attractively updated, wood-floored dining room. Atmospheric, country-style rooms upstairs await your arrival with lots of old furniture and period details. Another plus: Belvoir Castle is minutes away, just 2mi (3km) to the north.

The stone-fronted Olive Branch inn Clipsham has had a long working life, first as cottages for local farm workers then as a working man’s pub, before being reinvented as a genial gastropub. That classic country feel is paired with stylish rooms decorated in playful colour schemes – think tones of apple, chocolate and aubergine – in adjacent Beech House. It’s friendly, with a provincial feel; many ingredients for breakfast, lunch and dinner are grown in the paddock, or sourced from local dairies and farms.

Stapleford Park is everything you could ask for from an English country house. Forested grounds sprawl for miles around this enormous pile, which has its own chapel, servants quarters, stables and formal gardens. Rooms are large and lavish, with antique furniture and ornaments that recall the house’s rich history, modernised with chic designer fabrics that drape from ceiling to floor. Kids stay and eat free with parents, and there are miles of walking paths and even a miniature railway in the grounds.

No, we don’t mean that Chequers. You probably won’t spot the prime minister in this appealing country pub, but you will find hearty meals served under time-worn beams beside an open fire, and four attractive ensuite rooms with king-size beds in the attached stable block. The welcome is warm, the atmosphere informal, and the menu includes Grasmere Farm pork, Derbyshire fillet steaks and tasty tabbouleh.

The two rooms at the back of Higgins Cottage are pale-hued and pretty, with freestanding tubs, wooden floors, bare beams and brickwork, and beds topped by lush White Company linen and big plump pillows. It’s a gentle escape, opening onto a private garden, in the tiny, tidy village of Denton, a few easy miles from Belvoir Castle. Breakfast is served in a breakfast room attached to the main cottage, or delivered to your room in a basket hamper.