Mannin Hotel

The Mannin shows a grand Victorian face to Broadway and hides a thoroughly modern building behind it. It is a substantial address in the middle of Douglas, and the beach is a short walk from the door.

The frontage runs the length of several townhouses in cream stucco, with tiers of bay windows, corner turrets and a steep mansard roof over the top. After dark the whole elevation is floodlit and the hotel name reads across the middle of it.

Into the atrium

Step through the doors and the building opens upward. Its centre has been hollowed out into a glazed atrium, white balconies stacked around the walls and daylight dropping from the roof, with glass-and-steel staircases threading between the floors. A lift serves the upper storeys. At ground level there is a broad lobby, a lounge of low modern seating, and a dining room laid up beneath a mezzanine with white napkins and small vases of flowers.

The bar has a pale timber counter with stools drawn along it and tub chairs set behind. The pumps are Manx, Okells and Bushy’s among them.

Up on the balcony floors

Rooms are carpeted and restrained in colour, with dark timber bedsteads, a patterned runner across white linen and tall windows behind sheer curtains. Several have an armchair or a small sofa in the window, others a desk. There are doubles, twins, and rooms that open onto the atrium balconies. Some bathrooms are fitted as level-access wet rooms with a grab rail.

Broadway and the seafront

Douglas Beach is a short walk away, and the rest of Douglas opens out from there: the promenade, the shops and the Sea Terminal.

Who checks in here

This one suits guests who would rather have a proper hotel in the middle of town than a spare room in a house. Somewhere with a bar and a dining room downstairs and a lift to the bedrooms. Worth asking about the wet rooms if steps are a problem.