[title]
Starting to think about where you’ll go when it’s safe to holiday in the UK again? Here’s some fuel for your daydreams.
This enormous twelfth-century monastery near the Suffolk coast is available to rent on Airbnb.
Butley Priory used to be home to Augustinian monks. It has welcomed the likes of Henry III and was used as a royal hunting lodge by King Henry VIII’s sister Mary Tudor and her family. It was converted into a mansion in the seventeenth-century and, more recently, was a rather draughty vicarage before being restored to its former country house glory in the 1920s.
Today, the huge building surrounded by Suffolk woodland is a totally otherworldly rental. The priory, where you can also get married if you fancy, is available to book on Airbnb for the dreamiest holiday you and your pals have ever had. We’re talking about when lockdown is over, of course.
The romantic building sleeps 15 in eight bedrooms (from £575 a night with a two night minimum, that’s just under £40 a night per person if you go off-season) and is all sweeping stone arches, huge fireplaces, window seats and floaty curtains in calming colours.
Large-scale weekends away with all your mates might be a while off. Multiple house meet-ups are currently not allowed and, although there is talk about how we begin to expand our social bubbles, we don’t know yet when they’ll be allowed again.
That said, a lot of accommodation providers across the UK, from cabins and campsites to hotel chains, are looking to reopen on July 4 in line with the government’s Plan to Rebuild.
Maybe this abbey could be the perfect place for a late summer jaunt?
Find out more or book the monastery here.
Are trips in the UK allowed now? Here’s what we know.