Designer Treehouse Mid Wales

Most treehouses are cheats. They get away with murder in the forest, using stilts for support, though the genuine article relies purely on branches to stay airborne. Step forward Living-room, which has five stilt-free structures threaded through the foliage, six metres above the ground in a small forest near Machynlleth in Mid Wales: an organic element in an unspoilt landscape.

Reached by a curling staircase, the dwellings, shaped like an oval tube to minimise wind resistance, are each spread across several oaks with wobbly rope bridges linking them to a patio and a mid-air compost loo. Inside the well-insulated, artistically engraved pods, it’s a world of wood with corner double beds, fold-down bunks – each holds two adults and two kids – and a kitchen with gas hob, running water and toasty, wood-burning stove. Without electricity, a constellation of tealights keeps it real and natural. For a morning shower, simply descend to ground level and enter a hazel cubicle directly below the house and yank a rope for a Welsh monsoon, warmed by the stove.

Once you’re down, you’re just a short drive from the beaches of the West Wales coast, in the heart of a marvellous area for walking, including a super route along Glyndŵr’s Way, where the summit of Moel Eiddew offers widescreen views across the Dyfi Valley.

Historic Windmill Norfolk

Spiking towards a vast canopy of Norfolk sky out of the gently undulating East Anglian coastline, the five-storey Cley Windmill at Cley-next-the-Sea twins a unique night’s sleep with fabulous panoramas. For the ultimate outlook over the marshes and North Sea around Blakeney Point, you’ll need the top floor Wheel Room with its oak four- poster, exposed bricks and multiple windows (and shower room accessed by a ladder).

The early 19th-century mill with six bed-and-breakfast rooms in its tower and three in outbuildings, including the Boat House and Dovecote, was grinding corn until 1912, then converted into a guesthouse in 1983 by the father of solidier-turned-crooner James Blunt... cue jokes about small wonder it’s so beautiful. There are antiques galore, a second-floor wraparound balcony with stunning views and a ground-floor circular sitting room with roaring fire. The one-time warehouse is now a beamed restaurant serving local delights such as a rack of Norfolk lamb or local corn- fed chicken with local vegetables – the perfect end to a day of bracing walks, with the beach less than a mile away.

Medieval Knight's Tent Kent

For you, it’s a quirky short break in a stunning setting but for medieval warriors it was a last taste of luxury before the blood- soaked mayhem of battle. Game of Thrones fans will go wild for the eight retro-striped pavilion tents, swaddled by an acre of vineyard at Leeds Castle in Kent. They come with cushy period details from four-posters, snug furry rugs and a cast-iron griddle over a fire pit to torch your skewers of meat. The two- person pavilions also offer hot showers in a nearby cottage and breakfast hampers with hot bacon butties. While Leeds Castle can’t offer military carnage any more, there are plenty of other options. You’re free to explore the Norman stronghold, Go Ape adventure course and dog-collar museum (really).

Classical Pigsty North Yorkshire

We’ve all done it. Come back from a holiday with inspiration for a full Grand Designs revamp: Provençal pastel windows, olive trees and an African fire pit for the patio. Yorkshire squire John Barry of Fyling Hall (1851-1920) took it one step further. After a Mediterranean jaunt in the 1880s, he built his pigs a classical masterpiece, all columns, plinths and architraves: an oinkers’ Greek temple gazing across fields to the sea at Robin Hood’s Bay. Now, following major architectural surgery by The Landmark Trust, the aristo’s bonkers stone-and-timber folly is yours to rent.

The Four Seasons of pigsties offers two people a no- nonsense country cottage vibe with wood-burning stove. Whitby Abbey – inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula – is a short hop away, as is the heather and ling of the North York Moors (Heartbeat country). Squire Barry also built an ornate cowshed with stalls like church pews. Sadly, it hasn’t been prepped for human habitation just yet.

Parish Church Northamptonshire

You don’t have to be a devout Sunday regular to appreciate the beauty of All Saints in Aldwincle, north of Kettering, the Northamptonshire church where the 17th-century poet John Dryden was baptized. Like most English parish churches, it’s a divine blend of mellow stone, stained glass and splendid period architecture – and now there’s an opportunity to see it in a totally different light.

‘Champing’ means overnight stays in three of 347 churches that are run by The Churches Conservation Trust, no longer used for regular worship. Once you’ve collected the key, two of you are set for a candlelit night with mattresses, duvets and pillows: the chance to enjoy the handsome medieval church with its 15th-century square tower, exquisite limestone arches and birds and beasts carved into its façade. Breakfast is delivered by a farmhouse B&B and there is a camping toilet in the vestry. For entertainment, The CCT can arrange yoga, storytelling sessions or canoe trips along the River Nene (costs extra). Remember, you’re in the heart of a seriously photogenic county often overlooked by tourists, with wildflower meadows, woodlands and wetlands.

Vintage Ringmaster's Wagon Shropshire

Roll up, roll up! See the extraordinary vintage caravan, once home to a circus ringmaster. Nink’s Wagon, now a stationary maroon and cream splatter in verdant Shropshire countryside, is a wonderfully intact example of a 1920s travelling home with painted ceilings, engraved mirrors and original wood panelling.

Owner Nink, a former big-top performer, has made sure the two-person rental has all the essentials from a simple kitchen with microwave, to bedroom with cabin-style beds and sitting room with woodburner (and bathroom in an outside cabin). But it’s the homely, womb-like interiors that make Nink’s so special, a riot of patterned cushions, rugs and twinkling lights, mixed with oil paintings, hanging plates, books and lace curtains: you really sense you’re in the home of a flamboyant showman. Local attractions come in the form of Ellesmere for boating and fishing, and castles at Chirk, Whittington and Shrewsbury.

Cricket Pavillion Isle of Wight

The royals know a thing or two about tasty scenery, so when Queen Victoria gives a view the royal seal of approval you know it isn’t a brick wall and unfinished swimming pool. Sitting on the south-facing veranda of the Isle of Wight’s Osborne Cricket Pavilion, the monarch – never one for hyperbole – declared, ‘It is impossible to imagine a prettier spot.’

In the early 1900s, it hosted sporty cadets from the Royal Naval College, before livestock took over the immaculate wicket and the pavilion became a storehouse. Now, following a sympathetic renovation by English Heritage, it has been alchemised into tasteful holiday accommodation for four people. We think Ma’am would adore its pastel and grey interiors flooded with light through what were once changing- room windows. Pavilion guests have exclusive out-of-opening- hours access to Queen Victoria’s private beach, where she regularly dipped and where her children learnt to swim.

Rooftop Retro Rocket Bristol

Think of gleaming aluminium Airstream trailers and you imagine Steve McQueen on location in the Mojave Desert. Here’s your chance to share their style in a cooler, less Hollywood but no less unique setting. Bristol’s rather peachy Brooks Guesthouse has stuck three Retro Rockets – the modern, shiny British answer to Airstream – on the Astroturfed roof of its city centre property, surrounded by an ocean of Georgian and more recent architecture.

Ranging from 5m to 6m long (the largest’s seating area can be converted into two kids’ beds), they each come with compact doubles, Roberts Radios and Designers Guild soft furnishings – all washed with pink, blue and purple lighting that can be set on rotation. By some sleight of hand, the guesthouse has also fitted a flatscreen TV, full-length mirror, chest of drawers and hanging space, along with a bathroom with eco shower. Cat swinging is not advisable. All three come with epic breakfasts and access to the Brooks’ honesty bar. Head down from the roof and Bristol awaits, from Clifton’s Georgian streets and squares to the drama of the suspension bridge and maritime history of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s SS Great Britain.

Luxury Prison Oxford

You are to be detained at your own pleasure, rather then Her Majesty’s. Oxford Castle, the city’s former prison – it closed its doors in 1996 – now welcomes guests rather than inmates. Following an inventive re-design by Malmaison hotels, it’s the fabulously pimped A Wing that conjures up the most drama. During the day it’s airy and uplifting with white walls and glass balconies; at night it’s washed with moody atmospheric lighting. Behind the old battered steel doors, three tiny cells have been knocked together into a tasteful en suite with bold blocks of colour and those archetypes of a decent stay: brilliant beds and powerful showers.

Other rooms are built in the Old Guvnor’s House and across the yard in the House of Correction. All sport the little essentials that prisoners would have killed for, literally: superfast Wi-Fi, digital TV and 24-hour ‘Vroom Service’. The old visitor’s room is now a lounge, the A Wing vaults form a labyrinthine brasserie and the solitary confinement cell is a wine-tasting room.

Don’t worry, you’ll be allowed out for good behaviour, and you’re just a short stroll from Oxford’s dreaming spires, honey-stoned quadrangles and cerebral Ashmolean Museum.

Romantic Lighthouse Northwest Scotland

Lighthouse stays are perfect for anyone wanting to go off-grid: seekers of glorious isolation on the coast less travelled. Rua Reidh Lighthouse offers more than most. Standing at the end of a three- mile peninsula on Loch Ewe – one of the most dramatic locations in northwest Scotland – the only evidence of humanity are the distant lights of Skye and the Outer Hebrides. It means your neighbours, who you’re almost certain to encounter, are otters, seals and whales, along with dolphins and thousands of seabirds.

Small wonder the simply furnished rooms in the Grade-B listed building, erected in 1912, are named Orca, Gannet, Oystercatcher and Puffin (there’s also a five-person self-catering apartment with a cosy flagstone living room called the First Officer’s Quarters). Despite the remote setting, Rua Reidh’s guests receive a locally sourced breakfast with cheese, cured meat and bread that’s baked overnight; there are optional evening meals with regional seafood.

It’s no surprise this is a spot for walks with moorland teeming with wildlife. You’ll spot sea life from the lighthouse, but for a closer peek try Hebridean Whale Cruises, hebridean-whale-cruises.co.uk It’s 12 miles to the village of Gairloch, whose museum has Rua Reidh’s original light and foghorn, and which holds a twice-weekly produce market, while further on, the village of Aultbea boasts one of Scotland’s smallest distilleries, Loch Ewe.

Coastguard Lookout Tower Kent

Hole up in this starkly modernist 1950s beachfront tower surrounded by Romney Marsh: a vast, haunting, big-sky landscape with a backdrop of an eerie nuclear power station. It’s all very Iain Banks, but romantic in the same breath. It’s set in Dungeness, Britain’s only official desert, overlooking the Channel. The renovated five-person accommodation has coolly contemporary interiors and, on clear days, its panoramic windows offer glimpses of Cap Gris Nez in France.

It has all the creature comforts you could want, with underfloor heating beneath the limestone tiles, a log burner in the sitting room and two bedrooms with crisp linen and comfortable beds. A slim but perfectly located balcony sits facing the sea on the first floor, with enough comfy seating for six people and an iMac through which to watch TV. A patio outside leads straight onto the beach. A string of local butchers can deliver their wares to your door with little notice, perfect for barbecues if you wish to bring one.

On the Joker's Boat Liverpool

The riverboat you see here was designed and built for Hollywood as the lair of Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman. The scenes it was meant to appear in were unfortunately cut. But LA’s loss is Liverpool’s gain, as the bright mauve barge was rescued from an American scrapyard several years ago and now plies its trade sleeping six in Liverpool’s Albert Dock. Alongside the excellent amenities in the dock, it’s just round the corner from The Beatles museum, the bars of Mathew Street and the main shopping district.

In a Gypsy Caravan Cumbria

Take the slow road through elegy-inducing Cumbrian countryside in a horse-drawn gypsy caravan. The engraved wood and canvas wagons – you’ll have the chance to take the reins – head between rustic campsites where a fire is set up and you’re left to enjoy the seclusion. Pick the route through the Lake District.

In a Beachfront Railway Carriage Sussex

Stay in Tulip, a luxury turn-of-the-century railway carriage artfully integrated into a stunning seafront property on Selsey’s East Beach. Still sporting its polished-brass fittings, decorative luggage rails and elaborately inlaid mahogany interiors, the property sleeps ten with one bedroom, dining and sitting room actually inside the carriage.

In a Double-Decker Shropshire

Sleep in a bright-blue, 1981 Leyland Atlantean seven miles outside Shrewsbury, which sleeps five in three upper-deck bedrooms with a kitchen and living space downstairs. There’s also a hot tub and a homegrown breakfast basket is delivered every morning.