“The drapers of Shrewsbury in Tudor times were rich men and they built a fine guildhall in the heart of the city. Nowadays, its great panelled room on the ground floor is a restaurant, still furnished with 16th-century pieces and lit by candles. Upstairs, two bedrooms and two self-catering suites have been created without destroying the higgledy-piggledy character of the old house. Decoration is rather theatrical, with big gilt mirrors and bold patterns, a heavily carved Spanish bed and even some chandeliers. The showers and bathrooms (only two rooms have baths - one a Jacuzzi) are conventional, but modern and well-equipped. To eat dinner by a crackling fire and then to take the ancient stairs to your 450-year-old attic bedroom is to move as far from a bland modern chain hotel as it is possible to go.”
Written by George Pownall
