Special Places to Stay - More than a bed for the night

By a windmill, on a bend in the river in the Norfolk Broads, is an hugely appealing mill keeper's cottage with an award-winning, sustainable extension. It's a stunning place, and a gardener sees that the cottage-style planting conceals you from passing boats pausing to photograph your idyll. The ground floor has a high vaulted ceiling, is open plan and light-filled with great river views and defined areas for sitting, cooking and eating, and the kitchen and utility room have pretty much every con you could wish for. There's a two-way open fireplace and an impressive suspended stairway leading to simply stylish bedrooms above, with pale colours, big limestone-tiled bathrooms and, again, great views. A steep winding stair leads to two further rooms in the original part of the cottage, their beams painted white. It's all been thought through: logs laid on, space for wellies and for drying stuff, your can star gaze, sit out in the sun, watch the wildlife from inside or out. An irresistible weathered boardwalk bears you over the marsh: be in Norwich in half an hour, on the beach in quarter. And you've your own mooring.