Ivy House Country Hotel

This lakeside hotel was taken over a few years ago when it was in need of a bit of TLC, and they've done a great job with it,  improving the rooms and making the most of its beautiful site next to Oulton Broad, with gardens and ponds dotted with waterside benches and tables, and rooms in peaceful garden location.

Service is attentive and knowledgeable throughout, and their 21 guest rooms are spread across various buildings in the hotel grounds – 10 Courtyard rooms adjacent to the main building, which houses the reception, restaurant and bar, and 11 ‘Executive’ rooms, divided between the Garden block and the Farmhouse,  one of which is a two-bathroomed duplex suite. They are all spacious and pleasantly furnished, and feature tea-and coffee-making facilities, homemade biscuits, flatscreen TVs and decent wifi – and dogs are allowed in some of the Courtyard rooms. The hotel’s restaurant is a relatively formal affair situated in their handsome 17th-century beamed barn, and you can also simpler fare at Eve's Bar Bar next door, where you can also eat outside if the weather plays ball.

The hotel has the capacity to cater for big weddings and parties, and the grounds are certainly a good place to tie the knot, with footpaths through the gardens, meadows and reed beds down to the watery expanse of Oulton Broad and the next door Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve of Carlton Marshes. It's also a good base for both the Norfolk Broads and also the multiple delights of the Suffolk Coast, from Lowestoft itself down to the elegant resort of Southwold about half an hour's drive south.