THE BEST PLACES FOR FAMILIES TO STAY IN CORNWALL

Planning a family trip to CORNWALL and wondering where to stay with your children? The following list of our favourite places to stay with kids, reviewed in the order you’d encounter them on our Cornwall itinerary, includes family-focused hotels, cottages on the North Cornwall coast and a Youth Hostel inside the Eden Project. Accommodation can fill up fast during school holidays, particularly if you’re looking for a family room, so make sure you book well in advance.

You can reserve all of our recommended places to stay in Cornwall through Booking.com; clicking on the hotels’ name below will take you directly to their booking page, where you can fill in your dates and secure your stay. To find out more about why we’ve partnered with Booking.com, see here.

The inspiration for Toad Hall in Kenneth Grahame’s timeless The Wind in the Willows, FOWEY HALL is one of the most family-friendly hotels in Cornwall. Occupying a striking Queen Anne mansion, the hotel enjoys a fantastic setting high above Fowey Estuary and its attractive town harbour. There are plenty of options for accommodation, with 12 of the 36 rooms set up for families, some sleeping up to 4 people in one room with an option of Z-beds, sofa beds, bunk beds or cots, others (such as the Courtyard Family Room and the Large Family Suite) sleeping up to 5, with a separate room for the children; for larger families, there are also plenty of interconnecting bedrooms that can sleep up to 6 people between them. There’s a lot going on for kids here, both inside and out. Rates include 2 hours of free childcare a day at the OFSTED-registered crèche (for under-9s), where children can take part in origami, clay-making and quiz nights, as well as a range of seasonal activities. Other superb family facilities include an indoor swimming pool, beanbag-filled cinema room, and a retro games room with table football, pool and vintage arcade games such as Pac Man and Space Invaders. Or you can just snuggle up with a good book (one of 800 on offer) in the cosy library, the largest of its kind in the UK. Outdoors, the expansive grounds contain a Wind in the Willows-themed play area, complete with zip line, bucket swing, slide and cute bouncy lily pads. Children get complimentary fresh milk in the morning and evening, and fruit to snack on throughout the day. The emphasis at the hotel’s restaurant is on flexibility, with lots of options for children and an all-day menu so you can have lunch and dinner whenever you want – a really handy initiative – although there are plenty of other good places to eat just a short stroll down the hill in Fowey itself.

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Holiday in the heart of historic Charlestown with a few nights at charming SEA HAZE, a Grade II-listed cottage with real character. It’s reassuringly traditional – there’s flagstone flooring in the lounge, exposed stonework in the kitchen and a roll-top bath upstairs – but packed with amusing oddities, like the cooker hood that’s made from the repurposed bonnet of a Morris Minor! The interior has been beautifully renovated, with an appropriate maritime feel to the design: whitewashed interiors, porthole mirrors, rope lamps in the bedrooms, and a big scallop-shell light pull in the downstairs toilet. The two bedrooms sleep 4 people in soft, comfy wrought-iron beds, a double in the main bedroom and two top-to-toe singles in the second, although an extra bed can be squeezed in on request [£15 per night, £8 for under-16s, or £4 per night for a cot for under-1s]. Downstairs, the fully equipped kitchen has all the standard amenities (plus plastic cutlery and a high chair if you’re travelling with infants), and the cosy lounge has a smart TV with Netflix and a DVD player. Steep stairs connect the two floors, but a wooden stair gate at the bottom gives peace of mind. There’s no garden, although you can sit and watch the world go by with a pot of tea at the table and bench outside the front; you’re welcomed with a Cornish cream tea, plus a selection of other goodies such as biscuits, local beers or a bottle of bubbly. Sea Haze is just a short stroll from Charlestown’s harbour and adjacent beach, and to the village’s best cafés, restaurants and pubs – Charlie’s Coffee House is a few doors down the road, the Rashleigh Arms a few doors further. There’s parking available just outside the cottage, and you can be at the Eden Project in less than 10 minutes and Fowey in just over 15.

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The YOUTH HOSTEL ASSOCIATION (YHA) has 11 properties in Cornwall, from Boscastle round to Bodelva, nearly all of them located on the coast. In many ways, they’re the perfect choice for an active family holiday:  geared up for enjoying the great outdoors; often within walking distance of the beach; and with a range of good-value rooms, especially for larger families. You can make the most of your day at the Eden Project by staying on site at the YHA EDEN PROJECT, just inside the East Gate Entrance. Accommodation here is split between two sections. In the main part, by the YHA Reception, you can stay in a compact Snoozebox, built out of old shipping containers and cleverly repurposed to sleep 4 people, in a double bed and two bunk beds. They come with air conditioning and heating, an en-suite wet room, LCD TV and porthole window. Your other option is to bed down in a bell tent or Landpods in a camping field a little bit further up the road. Bell tents sleep 5 on a double futon mattress and three singles and (in the Premium versions) have a welcome wood-burning stove for chilly nights; they’re erected on raised wooden terraces, so you can sit outside and watch the sun dip into the Atlantic each evening. The neat little Landpods are like wheel-less wagons, with two double-bed bunk beds sleeping 4 – storage is under a cushioned bench seat (shoes go on pegs, under cover, outside). Tents and Landpods share a communal shower block with toilets at the bottom end of the field. On the north coast, YHA TREYARNON BAY enjoys a superb location, just yards from a family-friendly beach. At low tide, a natural swimming pool forms between the rocks, and it’s a popular surfing spot – the hostel offers lessons through a local surf school if you fancy a go. Private en-suite rooms sleep 3, 4 or 5 people, in a combination of doubles and singles or bunk beds, and there are bell tents and Landpods here, too, in a field behind the hostel. Public areas such as the self-catering kitchen, lounge and drying room remain closed due to COVID-19, although there is still a limited menu available from the on-site Trey Bay cafe. Treyarnon Bay is 5 miles west of Padstow and around 24 miles down the coast from King Arthur’s castle in Tintagel.

To reserve your stay at YHA Eden Project, click here

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Whitewashed ROSEVEAN COTTAGE is a lovely Cornish hideaway. Cute and cosy on the inside, with a comfortable little lounge, refurbished kitchen and bathroom, and two bedrooms upstairs, it is set on the lower end of a hill on the way out of St Agnes, in a quiet residential street but not far from the heart of the village. The bedrooms – a master bedroom with wrought-iron double bed and a twin bedroom – can sleep 4 people (a travel cot for infants can be provided on request), though families with older children may find the living space on the snug side. The closed-in courtyard garden, with a BBQ for summer evenings, is also toddler friendly, and there’s off-road parking – quite a rarity in the village. St Agnes has its own beach, about 10 minutes’ walk from Rosevean, and has direct access to the South West Coast Path, which hugs the cliffs as it threads through reminders of the county’s tin-mining past on its way south to Land’s End. It makes a great base for exploring North Cornwall, as you roughly half way between the long curving beaches of The Towans, near St Ives, and Watergate Bay, and less than 30 minutes’ drive from the Gannel Estuary, one of the best places in Cornwall to try your hand at paddleboarding. There is a good selection of places to eat in the village, many within walking distance of Rosevean, including The Taphouse, The Cornish Pizza Company and, on the way to Trevaunance Cove and the beach, the hip little Genki café – the cottage’s information booklet has more recommendations (along with menus). You may be too full to think about food, though, after working your way through the complimentary cream tea of scones, jam and clotted Cornish cream that welcomes you on arrival.

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Originally a mine captain’s home, ST GEORGE’S COUNTRY HOUSE sits atop a hill overlooking the laidback surfing town of Perranporth. Although it looks like a hotel from the outside, it feels more like a guesthouse, thanks to the individual styling in the rooms, the homely lounge and the personable service from super-friendly Ursula, the owner. The Family Room is light and airy and has a double bed and two singles, both with goose-down duvets, and pleasant views over the walled garden. There’s a flat-screen TV, en-suite bathroom and tea- and coffee-making facilities. The room’s a decent size, but you can also relax or chat with other guests in the lovely lounge area, which has comfy Chesterfields ripe for slumping in, a wood-burning stove and a tempting little bar. Room rates include an excellent full English breakfast, freshly made using local produce. For evening meals, you’re 2 minutes’ drive from the centre of Perranporth. St George’s is on the side of the B3285, which runs for 3.5 miles down to St Agnes, but it’s in a quiet location, surrounded by fields, and is just a mile from the long stretch of sand at Perranporth Beach. Further afield, it’s 9 miles north along the A3075 to Crantock Beach and the Gannel Estuary and 24.5 miles to Wadebridge, for the cycle ride to Padstow.

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