Aaron House

Aaron House is the yellow one: a four-storey Victorian villa in the terrace on the promenade at Port St Mary, its bay windows facing straight out over the water.

Steps rise from the pavement between two planted beds to the front door, and an iron bracket carries a painted board advertising the afternoon teas served here. The proportions inside are the original ones, with high ceilings, deep skirtings and a staircase turning up through the house.

Brass bedsteads and cast-iron grates

The rooms are furnished with real period pieces rather than copies. Several keep a black cast-iron fireplace in the chimney breast, with a mahogany or pine wardrobe alongside and a tea tray of kettle, china and biscuits laid out on a linen cloth. Beds vary from polished brass and iron frames to heavy wooden sleigh beds, and the twin rooms take two singles. One or two rooms retain an original washbasin in the corner. Bathrooms are private; most are walk-in showers, and one has a freestanding tub.

The bays on the front

The rooms worth asking for are those at the front, where the bay is dressed in swagged or red draped curtains and furnished as somewhere to sit rather than pass through. A pair of mahogany chairs and a round table, or a dressing table pulled up to the glass, and the sea filling the window with the coastline running off towards the point.

Along the promenade

Chapel Bay Beach is right by the door, Brewery Beach a walk the other way, and the harbour and shops of Port St Mary sit at the end of the same level front.

Who stays here

People who want the Victorian house rather than a modern room, and anyone here to walk the southern coast and come back to a sea view and a pot of tea.