Last-minute UK Valentine's holidays - from a Cornwall spa stay to a luxury hotel break in London
If you're intending to book a special getaway to celebrate Valentine's Day you'll need to move quickly. From a stay in a rustic Scottish cabin to a spa getaway on the Cornish coast, the below romantically minded holidays in Britain still have availability during and around February 14.
Berkshire
Berkshire’s Cliveden House - where Meghan Markle spent the night before her marriage to Prince Harry - is offering its guests a seven-course Valentine’s Menu on February 14, 15 and 16 (£380 per couple including wine pairing). Dishes include Scottish langoustine, English wagyu beef carpaccio and yuzu cheesecake.
The next day, consider booking the spa’s Rose Garden Experience, which includes a pink Himalayan salt scrub, detox wrap and Indian massage, £290 per couple. Club Room rates at the hotel start from £650.
Brighton
One of the most novel ways to spend Valentine’s Day in Brighton is aboard the British Airways i360 pod. A three-course meal will be served in the air that night, the menu will feature the likes of slow-roasted pepper, cannon of lamb with pomme fondant and bitter-chocolate dipping pot with kirsch-drenched griottine cherries. With a bottle of Nyetimber sparkling wine, the experience costs £218 per couple.
Cornwall
At the adults-only Scarlet resort near Cornwall’s Mawgan Porth beach, couples who book the two-night Love Yourself package (from £880) will enjoy three-course breakfasts, a five-course dinner (with paired wines) showcasing the best Cornish produce and an hour-long spa treatment each - as well as full use of the property’s facilities, including its cedar sauna and outdoor hot tub.
Hampshire
In the New Forest, Lime Wood’s recently launched Lake Cabin is a private wooden lodge that makes a sweet, intimate retreat for couples - while still providing full access to the hotel’s facilities.
Guests who book the lodge (from £1,150 per night) can complement their experience by booking the spa’s Herb House Duo package (from £530) - 180 minutes each of treatments plus time to relax in the private Mud House and use of their own bathtub and steam room, plus fitness classes and lunch.
Hertfordshire
The Grove hotel’s Height of Romance package includes a stay in the hotel’s Vice-Presidential Suite, a spa treatment each, three-course dinner and - most interestingly - a 40-minute helicopter ride above the home counties and London. It costs £6,000 and is available on Valentine's Day only.
Kincardineshire
Just opened, Glen Dye Cabins and Cottages are a straightforward but lovely-looking collection of huts and lodges that should appeal to couples who want a back-to-basics break away from it all.
Between Aberdeenshire and Angus on Scotland’s northeast coast, accommodation at the site includes a remodelled 1950s Airstream Safari Caravan, a redesigned Victorian summer house and a renovated 1840s sawmill. Couples who hunker down here in February will be able to enjoy a full Scottish breakfast cooked over wood-burning stoves, admire the stars from a wood-fired Swedish hot tub and, if they’re brave, go wild swimming in the peaty waters of the River Dye. Rates at the Sawmill Cabin, one of the prime plots, start at £330 a night.
Lake District
Available on February 14 and 16 only, the Bold Gestures package at Lake Windermere’s Samling hotel includes a night in one of the property’s suites (decorated with 100 roses and with a bottle of Pol Roger on ice), a seven-course tasting menu and a special gift, which could be, say, an antique volume of poems by Cumbrian poet William Wordsworth. It starts from £1,035.
London
London’s historic Langham hotel dates from the 19th century and that heritage provides the inspiration for its Floral February package. In Victorian times, it was customary to say it with flowers - with explicit articulation of emotion not quite the done thing, the type of flower gifted to a beloved conveyed certain meanings that were otherwise left unsaid.
Guests who today book the Langham’s Floral February package (from £400 per night) will be provided with a choice of three bouquets by the hotel’s resident floral designer Adrian Ghione will be given a bouquet to take home. Pick the deep-pink roses to communicate love, gratitude and appreciation; tulips to convey cheer, sunshine and friendship; or orchids, a rarity in the Victorian age, for opulence, passion and sophistication.
Suffolk
One of the quirkier places you could choose to stay over Valentine’s Day, The Windmill near Lavenham in Suffolk is a 19th-century windmill turned holiday home. A two-night stay from February 13 to 15 costs £650 through Host Unusual and can be supplemented with a Love is in the Air package (costing £295).
That additional package provides couples with a full-body massage each in nearby Bury St Edmunds, champagne, chocolates and a gourmet welcome hamper so they can linger in their unique abode for as long as possible.
The Scottish Highlands
Set majestically on Loch Torridon and facing 3,461-ft Liathach, The Torridon feels rugged and romantic, whatever the weather might be like. Couples who stay in February can arrange a drive along the NC500 in a classic Morgan 4/4 (£250); book a personalised stargazing experience with a local astronomer (£500); or - if it doesn’t seem too cheesy - walk the Follow Your Heart trail, a 15-kilometre route in the shape of a heart.
Rates start at £225 per night, B&B, but take care of the room you choose. Each is distinctively designed so won’t appeal to all tastes, and not all offer those knockout views of the loch and mountains. For more on the property, read our complete The Torridon hotel review.
Isle of Skye
At Kinloch Lodge, a romance-minded package (available year-round) complements the hotel’s spectacular setting on the shores of Loch na Dal in the Sound of Sleat. Over two nights, couples will enjoy a spa treatment or whisky tasting at Talisker distillery; a five-course dinner one night and a seven-course tasting menu the other at the hotel’s restaurant, and other treats along the way. Prices start from £799.
York
Beautiful York is a timeless choice for an English weekend break, and couples who go there in February can supplement their explorations of the city with a shared culinary experience at The Grand, York hotel.
The property has just launched a cookery school and couples can join full-day cookery classes, themed to Spanish dishes. Guests will also enjoy a three-course dinner and will retire to bedrooms complete with sunken marble bathtubs. Stays start from £689, inclusive of the cookery course and dinner for two.
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