Marston Farm Hotel

They didn't build 17th century farm houses in town centres. When we say The Marston Farm Hotel is in the country, we mean deep in the country. But it's still only a quarter of an hour from the NEC in Birmingham and near to Sutton Coldfield, and so it's well worth finding. For this was the ancestral home of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of Her Majesty's constabulary, which is why they're called Bobbies. In its 9 acres of beautiful Warwickshire countryside, you're on the Birmingham-Fazeley canal. When did you last take a towpath walk? Just smell the honeysuckle and the grass,nectar. The hotel has inglenook fireplaces, original rafters, wattle and daub, a pretty courtyard for quaffing away during the summer and armchairs so deep you're asleep before you've come to rest. There's a lovely permanent marquee for weddings as well. So the key question is, why bother to put up with the noise and pollution of a Birmingham city hotel if you can settle back in the countryside and take it really easy? Oh, and there's a tennis court as well.