South Devon · England
Burgh Island Hotel
Art Deco on a tidal island reached by sea tractor when the causeway floods
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Burgh Island sits a few hundred metres off Bigbury-on-Sea and becomes a genuine island twice a day. At low tide you walk across the sand; at high tide a sea tractor on stilts carries guests through the water, which is as much part of the experience as anything indoors.
The hotel itself is a 1929 Art Deco building that once drew Agatha Christie and Noel Coward, and it has been restored with the period intact rather than sanded away - a Palm Court with a glass dome, a Ganges Ballroom, black-and-chrome bathrooms. Dressing for dinner is encouraged and, on some nights, expected.
Beyond the hotel there is the island itself: a clifftop walk, a huer's hut at the summit, the Mermaid Pool cut into the rocks, and the 14th-century Pilchard Inn by the landing beach. The scale is small and the sense of separation is the point.
At a glance
What to expect
- Sea tractor transfer
- Art Deco Palm Court
- Private tidal island
- Historic Pilchard Inn
- Natural rock sea pool
- Black-tie dinners
- Island cliff walks
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