Hotel of the Week: Romney Bay House, Kent

I love arriving at a hotel in the dark and waking the next morning to be wowed by its setting, says Fiona Duncan in the Sunday Telegraph. And there's few better places to do that than Romney Bay House, which sits beside a beautiful pebble beach and on a clear day enjoys views across to France.

Designed in the 1920s by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis for the American gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, it's an "imposing mansion" in a delightful area – Romney Marsh. Food is "excellent" and the rooms "pretty", but the service, although "kind and prompt", is "a little too controlling".

Doubles cost from £92 incl. breakfast. Contact: 01797 364747. ·