Athol Park Guest House

Athol Park Guest House takes up a tall corner house in Port Erin, painted dusty rose with white mouldings picked out around three tiers of bay windows. It is an old-fashioned Manx guest house, run properly as one.

Those bays give the front rooms their light and their outlook over the rooftops to the green hills beyond. Behind the door the house keeps its Victorian bones: high ceilings, deep cornices, patterned carpet, bedroom doors off a long landing. The upper floors are reached by stairs, so say so if you would rather not climb.

Breakfast tables in the bay

The dining room at the front is the heart of the house. Tables are laid with cloths and fanned napkins under wall lights and a swagged pelmet, with a dark timber fireplace at one end and the bay window at the other. It is a room for sitting down properly in the morning.

Carved bedsteads and tucked-away singles

No two bedrooms match. The big front doubles have carved white bedsteads, mirrored dressing tables and windows dressed in red, and one of them carries a four-poster with a canopy. Further back and further up are neat twins and singles, some papered and floral, some plain and modern. Rooms have their own bathroom, a television, a kettle and a hairdryer, with towels, toiletries and slippers put out.

Down to the bay and the railway

Port Erin Beach is a short walk from the house, a broad sweep of sand held between two green headlands with the village stacked above it. Port Erin is also where the steam railway ends, so green engines and red carriages come and go from the station under steam.

Made for railway days and beach days

It fits travellers who want a room over the roofs, breakfast at a laid table and the sand within walking distance. There is a family room taking a double and a single. Anyone here for the railway, the coast path or the bay is well placed.