Boskerris Hotel

Press Reviews

Winner 'Small Hotel of the Year' in the Cornwall Tourism Awards 2011

The Telegraph, July 2009
"Instantly welcoming, the hotel has a bright, breezy New England feel, attractive ocean-and-shingle décor, glorious views – an Atlantic panorama stretching from St Ives harbour to Godrevy Lighthouse – and a generous deck on which to sit and enjoy it all. Carbis Bay’s lovely sandy beach is a five-minute walk downhill.

The owners, Jonathan and Marianne Bassett, were novice hoteliers when they first bought into the Cornish lifestyle, but they quickly earned their stripes, turning the tired Thirties Boskerris into a hip little hotel. The lounge bar is an easy-going mixture of armchairs, wood floors, chandeliers and pale duck-egg blues. The guest rooms are essentially clean-cut and vaguely Seventies (it’s the plain picture windows), but dressed in swish silks and satins, vivid colours (candy pink, pewter or chocolate), the occasional nautical stripe and the odd wall of feature wallpaper. Most have sea views, and they all have modern bathrooms (there is a corner bath in the Hollywood-style “celebration room”)."

Conde Nast Traveller (UK), August 2008
"On a sunny day, you can sit out on the decking at Boskerris Hotel with a glass of New World white, and gaze past dolphins to the lighthouse at Godrevy. The 1930s-built hotel has been transformed by Cornishman Jonathan Bassett and his wife Marianne, and now features a gentle blend of whitewashed wood, soft-blue fabrics and piles of interesting books in the bar and living room. The 15 bedrooms are decorated with a vibrant mix of Designers Guild wallpapers and raw-silk curtains. The standard rooms are smallish, so book a superior or the Celebration Room if you can. Breakfast includes honey-roased muesli; the dinner menu makes the most of seasonal produce prepared in uncomplicated ways. The beaches of St Ives bay are below you, the museums of St Ives, including the newly restored Leach Pottery, are a three-minute train ride away, and the hallway wallpaper doubles up as a map of Cornwall flagging up the family's other favourite haunts."

The Sunday Times, October 2007
"St Ives exudes riviera glamour: a tumble of whitewashed cottages around a boat-bobbing harbour, and a clarity of light that has tantalised artists. Just out of town, the Boskerris echoes that elusive quality, with lots of white walls, white furnishings and white-shell chandeliers. It also packs some heavy-duty literary cachet: from its terrace, you can see Godrevy lighthouse, the one that inspired Virginia Woolf."

The Guardian, July 2007
"Overlooking Carbis Bay, this is the perfect swanky, contemporary pad from which to explore swanky, contemporary St Ives. The decorative style is chic and minimalist: a tasteful mix of glass, bleached boards, neutral browns and subtle pastels. Cornwall's most up-and-coming restaurant, the Porthminster Cafe, is a 20-minute walk along the coastal path."

Hip Hotels UK, Herbert Ypma
"It’s easy to sit on the broad terrace suspended above the spectacular scenery and be mesmerized by the beauty of it all. Boskerris Hotel and its setting reminded me of Whale Beach, another steeply sloping stretch of beach an hour’s drive north of Sydney. It too has lots of families playing in the sand and quite decent surf. Surf, surfers, turquoise blue waters, white sand beaches and everyone dressed in board shorts and T-shirts: it’s not your classic vision of the British coast.

There is an ethereal lightness to the [hotel] interior that works perfectly for a place with such a view. From the clean all-white dining room with its chinoiserie Chippendale chairs, to the slick bedrooms that wouldn’t look out of place in Wallpaper magazine, the Bassetts did a great job of matching the interior to the setting."

Guest Reviews

Reviews are only from people who have stayed there and booked through i-escape.

• “The service was great as was the food - French toast for breakfast was delicious. There is a nice place in St Ives to eat called Firehouse.”
  Alicja, United Kingdom (10.05.12)

• “Best breakfast menu I've ever seen in a hotel. Keep up the good work, we had a lovely stay. The free iPhone app was very thoughtful too.”
  Trina, United Kingdom (29.08.11)

• “Superb from start to finish. A great welcome, lovely room well equipped and nicely furnished. Always greeted when we returned and offered fresh milk for tea in our room, great breakfast and a very nice "light bite" menu in the evenings. A reasonably priced bar and good recommendations for place to eat and things to do. If only all hotels were like this....”
  Alan, United Kingdom (10.03.11)

• “The hospitality was exceptional with no request too difficult. The hotel and the rooms very clean and very comfortable”
  Rae, United Kingdom (28.06.10)