Aren't seaside hotels just for high summer?
Think again. This sparkling white confection - built in the Twenties by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis for the Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper - has to be one of the snuggest places in the country to spend a wintry weekend. If weather permits, you can walk along the beach to Littlestone and, if you're feeling very energetic, on to Dungeness. But if seaweed is being tossed into the garden, take refuge in the sitting room as the windows mist with salt.

That close to the sea, eh?
Across a private road and down a shingle bank.

Sounds a bit draughty
Not at all, even when gales keep the fishing boats in port.

What are the rooms like?
They feel like guest bedrooms rather than hotel rooms: cosy, warm, and crammed with stuff (naive art, old jugs, dried flowers). Room 9 has a four-poster, red-check armchairs and two big windows from which you can watch the lost section of the Mulberry Harbour (which ran aground before it could be towed to assist the Normany landings) rising and receding beneath the Channel.

What's worth seeing locally?
The churches of Romney Marsh (especially Fairfield, and St Mary's in the Marsh, where E. Nesbit is buried). Dungeness, where you can wander past Derek Jarman's garden or climb the lighthouse. In the summer, catch the Romney-Hythe-Dymchurch railway, a tiny steam railway with its own pint-sized dining car, and collar a lobster lunch in Hythe.

Atmosphere?
Easygoing, and slightly chaotic. I'm told the food, cooked by the owners, is terrific. However, they'd forgotten we were coming and had gone away for the weekend. Oh well, any excuse for another visit...

· Romney Bay House, Coast Road, Littlestone, New Romney, Kent TN28 8QY (01797 364747, fax 01797 367156). Rooms from £75 to £130, including breakfast.