Thyme’s New Garden Rooms Capture the Beauty of Nature

Pink sidalcea Flowers grow on the walls; they are also present in the bathroom, blooming on every surface: petals of fuchsia and lilac curving upwards.

If you have a penchant for minimalist interiors, you might want to avoid Thyme, a unique retreat in Southrop in the Cotswolds. The hotel embodies the essence of maximalist country chic, with honey-coloured walls, an extravagance of floral-print wallpapers and botanical textiles.

But Thyme is no ordinary hotel: it’s more of a small village with its mix of accommodations scattered across the bucolic 150-acre estate, including four new Cutting Garden rooms, which are the result of a collaboration with Thyme’s sister brand, Bertioli.

Approaching Thyme, past fields of Welsh black sheep and along cobbled paths lined with lavender, hollyhocks and fragrant roses, it’s clear that the family business is more than just offering guests a place to rest their heads. As well as a renowned cookery school on site, the hotel (founded by Caryn Hibbert, with her daughter Milly as general manager and son Charlie as head chef) offers 31 bedrooms, a restaurant in a converted ox barn, The Swan pub, the Meadow Spa, two shops and even a Norman church on site.

Caryn and her father, Michael Bertioli (a physicist and engineer), began the project by slowly restoring the buildings with a focus on conservation and sustainability. It took about 13 years to complete the property, which opened in 2020. Since then, Caryn and Milly have launched their lifestyle brand, Bertioli. Described as a “sister brand,” it offers a selection of home goods “inspired by nature that connect customers to the earth.”

The latest Cutting Garden collection, which includes tablecloths, home accessories and a home fragrance, pays homage to the flowers from Thyme’s cut garden and also features designs hand-drawn and painted by Caryn. The new rooms, located in The Farmhouse, elegantly bring the two brands together. Check in and you’ll be transported to the beautiful fields and gardens just around the corner, captured in the wallpaper, textiles and lampshades in your room.

“The entire collection is a celebration of cut flower gardens and aims to bring the outdoors in, championing the philosophy that flowers make us happy,” says Caryn. “Anchored in Thyme’s philosophy that our well-being begins with a connection with nature, the collection reinforces the idea that by caring for nature, we are caring for ourselves. The four newly renovated rooms have been decorated with measured maximalism to showcase the new collection.”

Each room has its own unique design, using a variation of cut flower garden motifs: Pink Phlox, Mixed Phlox, Elderflower and Sidalcea. The effect transports you to a bygone era, where nature was the driving force of life. The immersive journey is made even more intense by the fact that the room is equipped with its own Bertoili fragrance of freshly cut flowers (from the toiletries to the candles to a sustainable botanical beauty bar), making it feel like waking up with your pillow in the gardens.

“I painted some of my favourite flowers, unabashedly joyful and wonderfully floriferous,” says Caryn. “The designs depict flowers in their natural form, reaching for the sun, as well as in a florist’s bouquet and in linear rows, as they grow in our cut flower gardens. These nature motifs, combined with their intoxicating fragrances, are the very essence of an English garden.”

For guests who fall in love with the designs, Bertioli products and fabrics are available to purchase from the on-site boutique and from stores such as Maison Flaneur. To recreate the ideal hotel room at home, visitors can also purchase the bespoke upholstered headboards made especially for the rooms by local furniture maker Lorfords Contemporary. The rooms also use natural paint colours, in tones such as sage and cream, by Edward Bulmer Natural Paints, which can also be purchased from the brand’s boutique in Pimlico.

If you haven’t booked one of the inventive cookery classes, which range from ‘Canapes and Aperitifs’ to ‘Gorgeous Biscuits’, there are still plenty of options to occupy your time. In fact, there’s a whole calendar of events, including breathing workshops, yoga classes and art exhibitions in the Tithe Barn event space. Best of all, perhaps, is the chance to wander the surrounding countryside, with hand-drawn maps of routes through the Southrop Manor estate and the idyllic surrounding grounds, complete with bubbling streams and wildflower meadows.

At Thyme, attention is at its core. In addition to complimentary pantries stocked with goodies, guests are also greeted with an in-room bin filled with homemade cookies, cheese straws, and negroni mix. Bikes can be rented, private florist or painting classes can be booked, and, of course, when it’s time to unwind, Bertioli luxury products to unwind in after the day (in evocative Victorian-style bathtubs with gorgeous views of the landscape).

For dining, you can enjoy informal meals at The Swan pub, or head to 19^th Chef Charlie Hibbert’s menu, which features local produce with a touch of Italian flair, is set in a 19th-century ox barn: start with the ‘Stracciatella, prosciutto, lamb’s lettuce and honey’ or the ‘White asparagus, mousseline sauce and parmesan’; for mains there’s the ‘Raie au beurre noir, capers and shrimp’ or the silky ‘Tagliatelle with artichokes’. Desserts include the ‘Polenta and blood orange cake’ or the ‘Syllabub à la rhubarb’ – the simple descriptions betray the delicious complexity and absolute creaminess of each dish.

“Thyme began as a restoration project with my father, to breathe new life into these dilapidated farm buildings,” says Caryn. “By bringing Bertioli to Thyme, we hope to strengthen the connection to the land through interior design and experiences. With this collection, customers can also take a piece of Thyme home, decorating rooms and tables with patterns, enhanced with scents, that are emblematic of Thyme’s gardens and wild spaces. It’s the coming together of everything we’ve created over the years. It’s the next chapter in our story, and we call it color.”