Hotel review: Fingals, Devon
Not everyone will warm to this idiosyncratic hotel – but those who do will find it difficult to leave The hotel sign might as well have said Middle-earth, considering our lengthy negotiations with steep, hedge-locked Devonshire lanes of near-suffocating narrowness. Crossing the lawn (nice tennis court, fab folly) and pushing open the door, I find myself in the bar and instantly feel as though I’ve slipped into a friend’s house. “Double measures are standard” reads a sign. The dinner menu is propped up alongside a bowl of crisps. Almost everything bears the patina of age, and not a little wear and tear, but the effect, aided by Classic FM, is a profound and enveloping sense of calm. Richard Johnston and his wife, Sheila, created Fingals 30 years ago. It’s
