Batty Langley's

With an honesty bar, bowls of fresh fruit and a collection of more than 3,000 books, this former townhouse is about as homely as you can get.

It's all terrifically theatrical, with gin cocktails served in a secret courtyard and little eccentric quirks, like the bathroom in the Earl of Bolingbroke suite, which is hidden behind a bookcase and opened by pressing the spine of a book. Abracadabra...

This quirky English hotel in Spitafields has Victorian copper showers, dark wood paneling, four-poster beds, tapestries, and loos hidden behind library shelves. It's original and utterly witty.

The guest rooms drip with authentic period details, from the carved-oak four-posters and oil paintings to the cast-iron roll-top baths, think Downton Abbey right in the heart of town.