A Slow Stay
The Double Red Duke is a sixteenth-century coaching inn in the Oxfordshire village of Clanfield, on the western edge of the Cotswolds. It was restored and reopened in 2020 by the Country Creatures group — the same team behind The Swan at Ascott-under-Wychwood and The Bull at Burford — and has the same easy, properly-cooked, properly-furnished register.
Nineteen rooms above and around the pub, an open kitchen at its centre, and a courtyard garden that comes into its own from May. The Duke is the kind of place that locals fill at lunch on a Sunday and visitors stay in on a Friday night without leaving for dinner. It is properly run and not at all precious.
The interiors were designed by Charlotte Jenks, working with a palette of deep reds, oxblood, and the warm cream of the original Cotswold stone. The furniture is mostly antique — chesterfields, country tables, marble-topped washstands — with contemporary lighting and bedding from British makers. The mood is grown-up pub, not boutique hotel; the distinction matters.
Nineteen rooms split between the inn itself and a converted barn behind it. Snug rooms in the eaves are the most characterful — sloping ceilings, exposed beams, baths positioned beneath original windows. The family suites in the barn have separate sitting rooms and gardens. Every room has Bramley toiletries, properly weighted linen and an honesty cabinet that is itself a small pleasure.
The kitchen is open and works through the day — breakfast, long lunches, Sunday roasts that are the reason locals book a week ahead, dinners cooked largely over an open fire. The menu is British and seasonal, the wine list is short and properly chosen, the cocktails at the bar are made by people who care. Children are welcomed without ceremony.
The courtyard garden, with a small bar of its own, comes alive from late spring to early autumn. Beyond the village, footpaths run along the Thames and across the open Oxfordshire countryside to neighbouring villages. The Country Creatures group's other pubs are within a half-hour drive, which makes a long weekend of pub-hopping a real possibility.
Clanfield is a short drive from Burford and the central Cotswold villages — Bibury, Castle Combe, Lower Slaughter — without being on the main coach-tour route. Oxford is half an hour east, Cirencester half an hour west, the Daylesford estate twenty minutes north. The Thames Path runs nearby. Lechlade-on-Thames, the highest navigable point of the river, is ten minutes away.
Indicative rates — vary by season and availability. Breakfast typically included. Confirm directly with the hotel for current pricing.
Reserve at The Double Red Duke
