Interiors bliss in a Bert's Box at The Pig

If you have so much as sniffed an interiors magazine in the past year, you’ll be well clued up on the existence of Bert & May – the much lauded, encaustic tile company that doesn’t so much tickle the fancy of the design community, as have them turning cartwheels down their perfectly lit, Farrow & Ball-painted hallways.

I haven’t been immune, although the experience of having my bathroom covered in the brand’s ‘tapas blue’ selection of tiles was so stressful there was a five-minute window when I saw everything in double and thought I was going mad. (In a seven-month renovation project that had more than its fair share of highs and lows, the episode stands out for being particularly hideous.)

Clearly my experience was a one-off. This is a brand going places, with expansions into fabrics, kitchens, crockery, paint and now ‘spaces’, taking Bert & May into every nook, cranny and shadow gap of the style set’s homes.

So what do you get when you match Bert & May with the much-loved restaurant-with-rooms concept that is The Pig?

A little spot of meadow adorned with a ‘Bert’s Box’ in the grounds of The Pig’s original New Forest property, is what.

Bert’s Boxes aren’t unique to The Pig. You can buy one yourself if you’ve got a spare £175k and a large garden, but failing this, the Box at The Pig is available to book just like any of their other hotel rooms. It isn’t so much a hotel room, however, as a master class in interior style.

It’s also the perfect showcase for Bert & May’s full range, coming as it does clad in their reclaimed wood, floored in their encaustic tiles, fitted with one of their kitchens, painted in their… well, you get the message.

I loved it. Fell hook, line and sinker for the whole damn thing. My enjoyment factor upped all the higher given just a short wobble away (I was wearing particularly high heels) was The Pig’s main house (read: bar and restaurant) and a gentler amble (I switched to trainers) to the little potting shed where exemplary massages and facials are dolled out to soundtrack of buzzing honeybees working their magic in the kitchen garden.

Lovingly styled with the same brand of shabby chic furniture and adornments as the rest of The Pig’s romantic properties, this not-so-little bolt-hole has bedroom, sitting room, kitchen-diner, bathroom and terrace, plus its own private garden. In short, it’s the perfect place to recuperate from stressful renovation projects.

To book a stay, log onto thepighotel.com.

Read more about Bert & May at bertandmay.com.

For more interiors and travel, follow me on Instagram @CarlaBuzasi.