Rookery Hotel, London, United Kingdom

Just a glance through the windows of The Rookery's three adjoining, faithfully restored 18th-century townhouses into the warmly lit drawing room beyond and it's clear: this is not to the usual bland box of a business hotel, but a quirky period home-from-home.

In Dickensian times this part of Clerkenwell was known, for its thieves, vagabonds and prostitutes, as the Rookery-though nowadays it's more hip and edgy than edged out.

The facilities

The Rookery is quirky, creaky, admirably unfussy and cosy. You can curl up by the fire with a drink from the honesty bar, or in warm weather sit in the sliver of garden, wittily enlivened by a mural of cows being herded and portraits of the boutique hotel's proprietors (who also own the equally excellent and quirky Hazlitt's in Soho). There's no restaur