I've found Kent's quirkiest new stay — it's a restoration triumph

Times

6 days ago

Stepping inside the flint-knapped walls of Maison Dieu, the grade I listed former town hall that has stood in central Dover since the Middle Ages, feels like entering a neo-gothic fever dream.
A strange summer mist had rolled in as we approached the White Cliffs, only adding to the drama as we stumbled through a maze of ceremonial rooms, resplendent with jewel-like wall stencillings, coffered ceilings, gilded wyvern dragons and a huge, Arthurian round table fit for the next series of The Traitors.
This is the Mayor's Parlour, a self-contained suite designed by William Burges as part of a Victorian extension to the original medieval building. It's the latest holiday let to be opened by the Landmark Trust in the charity's 60th anniversary year and I'm the first journalist to stay, with a group of friends.
Founded by Hubert de Burgh, the Earl of Kent, in 1203, Maison Dieu (House of God) started life as a monastic hostel offering pilgrims bed and board on their way to Thomas Becket's shrine at Canterbury Cathedral, but there are many different chapters to its history. After the Reformation it became a victualling yard, supplying ship's biscuits and beer to the Royal Navy, before it was bought by Dover Corporation to be turned into Dover's town hall.
In his 19th-century overhaul Burges — the flamboyant Victorian architect-designer best known for Cardiff Castle's fantastical interiors — converted the ancient fabric into a grand assembly hall, courtroom and prison cells, and added the mayor's quarters in the style of privy chambers to a medieval court.
The building fell into disrepair after the council relocated in the 1980s but a painstaking £10.5 million restoration project has now permanently opened the dazzling civic spaces to the public free of charge, and the parlour for private hire by up to six people.
The remains of Burges's original decorative scheme, discovered under layers of modern paint, were recreated by hand. Every single panel of stained glass — tens of thousands of individual pieces — has been cleaned and conserved. The mayor's meeting chamber is now the dining room, where that magnificent mahogany round table comes complete with a jagged piece of shrapnel from a cross-Channel shell that exploded in the street below during the Second World War, when the surrounding area was known as Hellfire Corner.
What is now the sitting room was once the place where witnesses waited to appear before the Sessions Court, while the adjoining WC contains the original Victorian urinal (a more charming artefact than it sounds) and a working replica of the wooden 'Thunderbox' toilet reserved for the use of the mayor and special guests.
Upstairs on the second floor, the spacious en suite double and two slightly more spartan twin bedrooms, each with access to their own bathroom, were formerly the Minute Rooms, where clerks kept the town's records. The wooden beds are deceptively comfy and the bathrooms top spec (I was particularly taken by our freestanding mustard-coloured tub).
Landmark's in-house joinery team built the bespoke kitchen in what was originally the mayor's robing chamber. Kitted out with Le Creuset pans, the charity's beautiful own-brand Old Chelsea china and an eight-seat table, this is probably the parlour's cosiest communal space. We find ourselves eschewing the much grander dining room to eat, drink wine and play cards here into the early hours.
As with all Landmark properties the parlour is self-catering — a pint of milk and teabags are supplied for a preliminary brew, but you'll need to bring all other provisions. There's an M&S Foodhall less than ten minutes' walk away, with plenty of parking.
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There's no TV, radio or wi-fi — another Landmark trademark — and we struggle to find a reliable phone signal, which means we're blissfully cut off from the high street on our doorstep but also, at points, each other. Trying to get two cups of tea down a corridor, through two sets of heavy fire doors (however carefully crafted to replicate surviving originals) up a stone staircase and back to bed without being able to call for a hand is a challenge.
Despite the ongoing revitalisation of the Kent coast, Dover is still a town most people pass through, rather than a destination. 'Go to Canterbury,' is one local's suggestion when we ask for recommendations, but happily we find a few gems.
The Hoptimist has a great range of cask ale, local ciders and craft beers, while the White Horse, the town's oldest pub whose walls are scrawled with the times of swimmers who took the amphibious route to France, serves tasty mussels steamed with cider and bacon and skin-on fries (£18.50, thewhitehorsedover.com).
On our walk back to the parlour we see the Art Club (theartclubdover.co.uk) has a live band and a 2am licence, while the Vinoteq Jazz Bar opposite looked to have a wine list worth sampling (vinoteq.wine).
The next morning we tour Maison Dieu's impressive state rooms, which now host an eclectic programme of community events from the local proms to British wrestling.
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Dover Castle commands views of the town from every angle but at £30.90 a head (english-heritage.org.uk) we decide we don't have time to do it justice and head instead for the chalk cliffs via Dame Vera Lynn Way.
A glorious, gently undulating two-hour hike around England's southeasternmost corner takes us past Fan Bay Deep Shelter, a wartime labyrinth of underground tunnels, and the South Foreland Lighthouse, before descending past some serious property porn to the shingle beach at St Margaret's Bay, once home to Ian Fleming (007 was the number of the Dover to London bus).
After a restorative pint on the Coastguard's busy, sunny terrace it's another easy two hours — our phones repeatedly pinging 'welcomes' to France — to Deal pier, with a pitstop at the weatherboarded Zetland Arms on Kingsdown's beachfront en route.
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From Deal, it's a 20-minute train ride back to Dover Priory (the station is a seven-minute walk from the Mayor's Parlour and trains carry on to Folkestone in another ten minutes). But we get off a stop early at Martin Mill and head down country lanes to the Lantern Inn (lanterninn.co.uk), a quirky, cosy, wood-panelled free house with a sprawling, semi-covered garden out back. We feel we've earned the 30-day dry-aged ribeye steaks, eaten under the watchful eye of Boris the pub cat, perched on his stool at the bar, before calling a taxi back to the parlour (mains from £13.50).
On our last morning, the hardiest member of our party braves an early morning sea swim as giant ferries chug by, followed by a steam at Rebels sauna. The rest of us head for coffee back at the Art Club, alongside a mix of Lycra-clad Gen Z-ers and walkers in performance-wear.
Although it's evident the Mayor's Parlour was never intended for domestic use — we never quite shake off a sense of roaming around an empty institution, after hours — it would be perfect for atmospheric murder mystery weekends, or combining forays along the coast with exploring the majestic history of Maison Dieu. The restoration feat is astonishing and the finish immaculate, a five-star difference from the poor pilgrim's hostel this once was. Rachel Cocker was a guest of the Landmark Trust which has three nights' self-catering for six from £663 (landmarktrust.org.uk)