The Under Hill Suite at the Hazelnut Inn was built beneath the roots of a tree. Its design brings together references to Tolkien’s Third Age and the gentle, watercolour world of Beatrix Potter’s English countryside.

The journey begins in a secluded courtyard. Pass through a handcrafted moon gate into a garden with a waterfall, then approach the suite’s heavy, arched entry doors. Carved into the lintel above it is a phonetic inscription declaring that this particular hole in the ground is pure comfort.

Inside, hand-painted wallpaper, warm Tiffany lamps, and bespoke ironwork give the suite a distinctly pastoral character. Above, a large root system twists across the ceiling, making the tree itself part of the room. A king-size bed rests in a recessed alcove, while a large soaking tub for two provides a place to settle in and slow down. Modern conveniences are deliberately kept out of sight, preserving the sense of stepping into an older world.

The moon gate, the garden, the carved inscription, the ceiling shaped by tree roots, and an interior that brings together two very different literary and visual traditions make the Under Hill Suite unusually specific.

It is a hole in the ground—but definitely not an ordinary one.

Today is Beatrix Potter’s birthday.

Best known for her beloved “little books,” Potter was also a naturalist and a passionate advocate for the preservation of England’s Lake District — a landscape that inspired much of her work.

Her stories were also an inspiration for our Under Hill Suite. Beneath the soil, twisting tree roots, bespoke hand-painted wallpaper, and woodland-inspired details create a space that feels like stepping into a little world of its own. A little whimsical, a little hidden, and made for slowing down and looking a little closer — much like Potter’s stories themselves.

Happy Beatrix Potter Day!

Last week we posted a short video of our Under Hill Suite online, expecting it to settle quietly among the millions of other things people see in a day. Instead, it seems the internet had other plans. Late at night, the video was watched for the one-millionth time.

A million is a strange number. We don’t know how many individual people watched it, or how many came back for another look. We only know that, at some point, a little video of our room under the hill crossed that remarkable number.

And that feels a little magical.

The Under Hill Suite took months to build. We bent steel into the shapes of roots, worked concrete by hand, scraped quite a lot of it from beneath our fingernails, and spent an unreasonable amount of time deciding exactly what colour “dirt” should be. It was built slowly, carefully, and entirely by hand.

So to watch something that took months to make travel around the world in seconds is a strange and lovely thing. There were shares and tags, and plenty of comments, including one that made us laugh: “Adults only?… GLORIOUS!!!”

To everyone who watched, shared, tagged a friend, or simply paused for a moment to peek under the hill — thank you. We’re very glad our little room found its way to you.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to go polish a tiny green stove.