A weekend escape
in the countryside.

Brent Pelham House has stood looking over the village green for more than two hundred years. It has been many things in that time: a family home, a place for Sunday lunches, a refuge when the weather closes in. Today, it is a small country house for guests who would rather arrive on Friday evening and have no reason to hurry home.

There are only three bedrooms, each with its own view of the garden or the old lime trees beyond it. Downstairs, logs are stacked by the fire, the kitchen table is usually set for a lingering breakfast, and the drawing room has enough corners to disappear into with a book. This is not a hotel polished to within an inch of itself. The floorboards creak, the flowers are often from the garden, and there is always another pot of coffee.

The house sits at the edge of one of Hertfordshire’s quieter villages, surrounded by footpaths, hedgerows and long lanes made for cycling. Cambridge, Saffron Walden and Bishop’s Stortford are close enough for a day out, but our favourite plan is less ambitious: a walk from the gate, a late lunch at the pub, then home before the light goes.

Three bedrooms. Big skies. Time to spare.