The Elms Apartments

The Elms is a block of self-contained apartments off Lezayre Road in Ramsey, set back behind a lawn and a run of flowerbeds. The front is pale render with stone surrounds, arched windows below and dormers cut into the roof.

You arrive on a tarmac forecourt with room to leave the car, past clipped hedging to the entrance. Each apartment has its own front door.

Open plan, and a ceiling that slopes

The living space runs kitchen to dining table to sofas in one length, which makes these flats feel larger than their footprint. Cream sofas face a wall-mounted television, and in the top-floor apartments the ceiling slopes away under the dormers. Kitchens are set up for a week of real cooking: oven and hob, dishwasher, microwave, washing machine and tumble dryer.

Bay windows and attic corners

Bedrooms vary from flat to flat. The largest takes six across three bedrooms and mixes doubles with twins; smaller ones run to two, and one ground-floor apartment is laid out with two singles. The best room has a deep bay window over the gardens. Others tuck under the roof, the ceiling closing in above the bed. Bathrooms are plain and white.

The lawn and the patio chairs

The gardens are the reason to want a ground-floor flat. Rattan armchairs and a low glass table sit on the patio outside the windows, with lawn, shrubs and spring bulbs beyond and mature trees along the boundary. Parking is on site.

Ramsey, from Lezayre Road

This is the north of the island rather than the busy middle of it. Ramsey is the main town up here, built around its harbour and a long curve of bay, and a sensible base for the coast road and the hills inland.

Who takes an apartment here

Families and groups wanting separate bedrooms, a real kitchen and a washing machine rather than a hotel corridor. Two of you can take a small flat, or three couples can share the largest.