Why do people choose to stay in hotels? Sometimes, of course, they are necessary - on a business trip, perhaps, or as a stopover in some far-flung destination. But the idea that you might opt to spend an entire holiday in one has always struck me as, frankly, bizarre.
Hotels, it seems to me, are cunningly designed to make you feel ill at ease and out of place: from the endless carpeted corridors to the slightly smaller-than-you-expected room, to the pervading sense that you are now a guest in someone else's establishment and subject to their whims. Yes, there's no washing-up, the bed gets made, and there is - if you are lucky - a vast array of unusual and exotic channels on the television. But everything about the hotel experience gives me a faint, cumulative sense of wanting it to be over.
Oh, you say, that may be true of the big chains and their faceless corporate façades, but we know a beautiful little one out in the country or in Tuscany and it's so different there. Tosh. For all the personal attention and customised charm, the fundamentals remain the same - you're still stuck in one small room, sharing your holiday experience with everyone else staying that week, subject to someone else's rules ('Breakfast ends at 8.30, I'm afraid, and dinner is served between 7.30 and nine. We don't find there's much call for eating after that.'). I go on holiday to relax, and hotels have a unique capacity for preventing me from doing so.
So it has always been holiday homes, cottages and villas for our family, even before the onset of kids made the prospect of being cooped up in a single room with a demanding 21-month-old daughter seem like something you need a holiday to recover from. I like having the run of a house when I'm on holiday. I like being able to wander into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich at any time. I like being able to turn the music up loud and have a drink that hasn't had to be smuggled on to the premises.
Having said all this, even a hotel-hater of my extreme prejudice has to admit that holiday homes and cottages - abroad as well, but especially in Britain - have an image problem. Hotels may be alienating, but they do feel special . Holiday houses reek of making do; they conjure images of jumble-sale furniture, of desperate searches for change to feed electricity meters and of night storage heaters. You go on holiday to experience a life more comfortable than at home, and find the opposite is true. Holiday homes, it seems, do not have a luxury option.
Well, actually they do. You just have to know where to find it. Take Tuckenhay Mill, for instance. Once a large paper mill on the River Dart in south Devon, it has been converted into 21 cottages, each with its own privacy but with access to the mill's sumptuous communal facilities.
Fancy a swim? There's not one, not two, but three pools, one outside, two inside and all heated. We went in mid-September, and the outdoor one remained usable on fine days (of which there were several), though the preference was for the beautifully constructed, superbly maintained indoor ones. Divided into one for families and one for adults only, the pools inevitably became the centrepiece of our holiday. The latter boasted extras such as wave machines, swim jets and water cannons, which sounded suspiciously like Americanised gimmicks until you tried them. Then you found yourself indulging in them every time.
But it wasn't just the swimming pools. There were children's play areas (indoor and out), badminton, tennis and snooker. Not that we used the other facilities much. We were too busy enjoying the surrounding area. South Devon has always been something of a mystery to me but with its rolling hills, abundance of rivers and their tributaries and steep, verdant hedgerows, it really is stunning. And all that is before you get to the beaches, of which there are plenty, most of them sandy and long.
Such are the perversities of the English weather that we were able to spend a couple of days in mid-September sunbathing as though we were on the Côte d'Azur (well, almost). Finally there are the towns: bustling, charming and (I'm told by those who know - I'm the last person to judge these things) full of interesting shops, arts and crafts a speciality.
As for the cottage itself, thankfully there was no electricity meter, the sofas didn't look as if they'd come from The Young Ones (though the bed was a bit narrow) and there was plenty of privacy, despite the cottages being adjacent to one another. Best of all, and pandering to another of my curious prejudices, there was an open fire. Shame the weather was so warm. Talking of heating, the cottage did have night storage heaters, and they remain beyond me. Apparently the key is predicting how much heat you want the next morning. Not the most straightforward calculation in the English autumn.
The odd minor quibble aside, Tuckenhay Mill was a brilliant stay, and was our destination of choice in a beautiful and relatively unspoilt part of the country. For about three months. Then we went to Sandridge Barton.
By a strange quirk of availability, the second house we stayed in for this piece was about three miles away from the first. Don't ask me why, it just happened that way. And if Tuckenhay is comfortable and extremely well provided for, Sandridge Barton is the holiday house to die for. It is also considerably more expensive.
Originally a large Georgian farmhouse - it's a Grade II listed building - it has been lavishly extended in the past 10 years, and only recently made available as a holiday home. The entrance from the road is slightly mundane and utterly misleading. Nearby there are still the outbuildings from the working farm it once was, and from the front the house gives little indication of the luxury that awaits. Once inside, though, the first thing that strikes you is its size. Every room on the ground floor is generously proportioned - kitchen, living room, sitting room. There's even a large games room - at least that's what you assume it is, given the Scrabble (deluxe version, of course) on the dresser.
The kitchen, unlike so many we've experienced, is lavishly provisioned, the only quibble being that with so many cupboards and storage units it takes about 10 minutes every time you need to find anything. A map referencing system might be the answer. The furniture is newish, robust and generally childproof, and far better, for example, than some of the precious but frail antiques that can make stays in Landmark Trust houses such a trial. And then there's the position. Built on a remote hillside overlooking the wide estuary of the River Dart, the house boasts a stunning south-facing view, all the more so on a cold, blue winter's morning.
Across the way, in one of the old farm buildings, there is a full-size snooker table. Unlike countless such tables experienced in country hotels, it has reasonably decent cues and a surface that doesn't require a contour map. There's even chalk.
If the ground floor is generously spaced, it does nothing to prepare you for the master bedroom, which is bigger than certain flats I've lived in, and definitely better furnished. Even the enormous bed looks out of proportion. It's too small. The only thing truly to scale is the ensuite bathroom, which is larger than most bedrooms, and boasts an enticingly spacious bath in its centre.
Perhaps the only potential problem - as far as a group holiday is concerned - is that the master bedroom is so much bigger than the others. There are three other double bedrooms and one relatively small single bedroom on the first floor, all decently sized and well-furnished by normal standards, but all carrying the unmistakable sense of being the courtiers' quarters to the emperor's lodgings up the hallway. There will certainly be a rush for the master bedroom, but in every other way Sandridge Barton is ideal for group holidays. It is large enough to accommodate two or three families comfortably, and by sharing the cost, what could be prohibitive becomes just about affordable. Prices, for a week in 2002, range from £1,236 to £4,500, though it is available for some long weekends for £883.
And for group holidays, especially family ones, there is one final and overriding reason for splashing out on Sandridge Barton: the beautiful indoor heated swimming pool. Situated at the far end of the ground floor, it is pleasingly big, nicely designed with a striking glass-domed ceiling which makes swimming at night a slightly surreal experience. Of course, it is a magnet - the two toddlers in our group seemed a permanent fixture - and the presence of a permanently available warm pool is perhaps the best reason for paying the extra. For a week, at least, you can live like the rich and famous.
Factfile
Matt, Jane and Kitty Tench spent a week at the three-bedroomed Milbourn Cottage, Tuckenhay Mill, Bow Creek, near Totnes, South Devon, which is available through English Country Cottages. A week at February half-term costs £488 while one week at the start of September costs £715. It is unavailable in August, but the nearby Horner Cottage, a barn conversion sleeping six, is available from 17 to 24 August at a cost of £783. Phone 0870 585 1155 or visit www.english-country-cottages.co.uk.
They also spent a long weekend at Sandridge Barton, Stoke Gabriel, near Totnes, available through Helpful Holidays. A three-night weekend costs £883 for 12 people in February. A week in August is £4,500 for 12 people. Visit Helpful Holidays or phone 01647 433593.
