Thyme
Southrop Manor Estate, Gloucestershire
Thyme is a unique property offering a home-away-from-home experience to our guests. With an ethos centred around a connection to nature, our 31-bedroom hotel is enveloped by 150 acres of land where we graze sheep, grow produce, and oversee the meadowlands for wildlife.
United Kingdom
Sitting on the borders of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire in a picturesque Cotswold landscape, Thyme is an English country idyll. Over the past two decades, the Hibbert family has restored the historic estate buildings to create a haven of restorative calm, which now comprises an award-winning hotel, Ox Barn restaurant and bar, village pub, cookery school, spa with outdoor pool and botanical bothy, and its own boutique. Together with its gardens, farm, and water meadows, Thyme immerses you in an English country way of living reconnecting you to the land, seasons, and nature.
Limelight guests will receive a complimentary beauty or bathing product from Bertioli, the sibling brand of Thyme.
Location
We are two hours from London, on the southern borders of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. We are easily reachable by M4 or M40 from the south, or by M5 heading north.
Distance from Airport
Heathrow; 71 miles
Average high season temperature
21ºc
Average low season temperature
6ºc
Child friendly
Welcoming our guests to immerse themselves in the restorative tranquility of historic buildings, good food, and the beauty of our land, we host guests and children over the age of 12 years.
Food and Drink
The Ox Barn
The 19th-century Ox Barn, once home to the oxen that ploughed our fields, is now a contemporary restaurant with extensive beams, soaring arches, and original Cotswold stone rubble walls. Under the direction of Charlie Hibbert, the chefs and gardeners at Thyme work together to grow and select vegetables, herbs, and fruits to create his modern British countryside fare.
Baa Bar
The Baa Bar, once the old lambing sheds, houses our flock of ‘sheep seats’ designed by founder Caryn Hibbert, a nod to the historic Cotswold wool trade. An elegant space to while away the afternoon with a light bite, coffee and cake, or reading a newspaper while our bartenders concoct our homemade cordials, shrubs, and infusions for an evening tipple.
The Swan
The Swan, our village pub, dates back to 1606, when it served bread and ale to farm workers. With low-slung ceilings, roaring fires in winter, and a secluded garden for summer dining, the pub, supplied by the delectable produce gardens at Thyme, offers traditional country fare, including an unmissable roast on Sundays.
Wellness
We have a store of welly boots for long walks in the countryside, bikes for gentle exploration of Cotswold villages, a spa with our award-winning Botanical Bothy offering treatments and rituals to harness the healing power of breath, scent, and nature, an outdoor heated pool, and a tennis court or boules on the lawn for some sporting fun!
Local Area
Explore Gloucestershire
The gently rolling hills of the Cotswolds, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are not only famed for wool production, ‘cot’ meaning sheep enclosure, and ‘wold’ meaning hill, but also for the idyllic honey-coloured houses that are scattered across our unspoilt landscape. On our doorstep are the Cotswold villages of Eastleach, Coln St. Aldwyns, Bibury, and Langford, each with its own pub featuring local brews. The larger town of Burford is 10 minutes away, with a medieval bridge, stone houses, and an ancient church. Burford is also a great place to find a new piece of art or perhaps an antique or two. Further afield are the famous Cotswold towns of Bourton on the Water and Stow on the Wold, and the picturesque villages of Lower and Upper Slaughter. For garden lovers, the grounds of Buscot Park are close by, and the famous gardens of Kiftsgate and Hidcote are an easy drive away. For lovers of historic houses, Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, is a must, while Kelmscott Manor, the home of William Morris, the father of the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1920s and 1930s, is close by.