Cortijo El Aguilon by Angela Moore

The turn-off for El Aguilon is just after Facinas on the road to Tarifa. Behind the house, dusty fields skirt Facinas and rise to a series of low granite peaks. As you arrive, you drive over a narrow bridge and crunch up a gravel driveway before coming to a stop outside a rather forbidding wall. A vast wooden gate, bolted and iron-bound in the Spanish style, stands a little open: you wander in and find yourself in a cool and verdant courtyard of palms and banana plants.

El Aguilon runs on the motto, “We’re not really a hotel”. The house was built to be a family home and the present owners lived there for several years before opening it to guests. This is a slice of England in Spain; the atmosphere is decidedly that of an English country house party – with Spanish sun and the Spanish appetite for food and wine and all the things that make life good.

Here, guests dine together each evening and throughout the day they wander in and out of the kitchen, making cups of tea and gins and tonics. There’s always a rather greedy gathering around tea-time, when tortillas and thrillingly squidgy chocolate brownies are laid out. As a result, the kitchen is the heart of the house, and there’s always a member of staff here to help you work the espresso machine or to chat.

The house itself is only 20 years old; in fact, it feels as though it’s been here forever. It was built around the billiard table in the basement and the wine cellar next door. Walls are white; ceilings are striped with dark wooden beams. The sitting and dining rooms are furnished in comfy, squashy-sofa style with the occasional exotic touch: Spanish antiques, bits and pieces from Morocco, a lovely mahogany parquet floor imported from a family house in the UK and cleaned and laid block by block. It has kept its character as a home, and is filled with photographs of children, family holidays, dogs and ponies.

Rooms are spread among the main house and an adjoining wing; the excellent stables - which are something of a magnet for flies, watch out! - and an all-weather tennis court lie beyond the house. One pool drowses gently in an orange grove in the exterior garden; in yet another courtyard, there are a little tiled lap-pool and a small Turkish hammam. There’s a small treatment room and guests speak in tones of hushed awe about the current masseuse. Those deserted Costa de la Luz beaches are minutes away. If it does rain, take advantage of tv room with its overhead projector, Dolby surround sound and library of DVDs.

There’s a faint aura of privilege about the Aguilon but no pretension. It may attract celebrities but it also attracts nice young honeymooners from London. Despite the house-party atmosphere, the house still manages to feel very private. You may occasionally be trapped in a polite conversation with a fellow guest, but there are enough hidden corners, courtyards and terraces for you to be alone should you so want. There is also a strong impression that the Cortijo is careful about who comes to stay here; bores and boors are not welcome and there’s a three-night minimum so guests don’t have different faces at dinner every evening. However, if push comes to shove, retreat to the top of the Torre, which seats only two and would be a romantic place for dinner a deux.

The rooms
There are seven rooms at El Aguilon: four upstairs in the main house, two on the outside wing and a new addition, upstairs at the back of the house with its own private entry. Each room is different; they vary in size and in décor.

Room Four is a smaller double that opens onto a terrace that runs the length of second floor, with views out over countryside towards the sea and distant, twisted rocky peaks (two other rooms also open onto this terrace.) Room One has a fantastically glamorous bathroom, with a vast marble bath placed so that you can simultaneously soak in it and soak up the view.

Throughout, though, the feel is of understated farmhouse comfort. Beds are substantial, linens are kittenish, bathrobes are snug, towels are fluffy. There are oaty, rich Molton Brown soaps and proper hairdryers; fresh flowers and a well-stacked bookshelf. No tvs and no phones add to the sense of seclusion.