hunter s hotel

Beside the now little-travelled old coaching road from Dublin to Wicklow, which still winds and twists through wooded countryside, stands Hunter's Hotel. It has always been an inn. A cobbled entrance leads to a graceful Georgian doorway, and into a red-and-black tiled hall, worn by the feet of travellers, and polished to a high gloss. A creaking staircase leads up to a wide landing, decorated with painted china basins and ewers, once in daily use. In the hall hangs a pair of enormous ox horns, brought home by a relative from the Boer War.
Bedrooms are small and simple, with plain furniture, pretty flowered wallpaper, and gleaming tilted bathrooms. Mine looked straight out into the branches of a huge flowering magnolia, and was snug and neat.
The bar is large and full of light, a pleasant place to sit and chat over a drink or a snack. It overlooks the hotel's glorious prize-winning gardens, in which flower beds and velvety lawns lead down to the river, overhung with big trees.