Hutty

Pembrokeshire

For those aiming to get away from human contact and stay deep in nature, then

Hutty, a two-person cabin in west Wales, could be the perfect solution.

It sits in a 14-acre private nature reserve under the

Preseli Hills, which the owners maintain alongside an organic farm and, to be truly perfectionist about this lack of human contact, there is no electricity but for the solar supply provided by an adapted boat switchboard. The loo and shower are a few steps away in the trees.

The hand-built cabin itself is a compact ergonomic gem of rustic creativity: recycled timber, a woodburner and a massive bed with windows all around for a bit of stargazing or nature-watching. There’s a small deck for eating outside with views down to the meadows by the Cleddau Wen river.

There are plenty of walks along the steep-sided rocky valley with various neolithic monuments to explore (this is the area where, 5,000 years ago, the builders of Stonehenge sourced their three-tonne bluestones).

• Sleeps 2, from £85 a night, qualityunearthed.co.uk

Signal Box Newtonmore, the Highlands

This quirky cottage looks like a traditional railway signal box with its essential tongueand-groove cladding and first-floor windows overlooking a working railway line: the north-south route through the Cairngorms.

Sad to say guests can’t actually operate all the levers and signals from the bed, but it does mean this accommodation has the shortest walk in of all our selections – the length of platform one, to be precise

Old signalmen would no doubt approve of its library, logburner and regular train noises, but they’d find some surprises too – a sauna being one. Local walks include Creag Dubh, a magnificent 756m peak, and the 10km Wildcat Trail. • Sleeps 2, from £555 a week, skyecottages.co.uk