Timeless hotels for old-school elegance

There are some places in the world with such a strong sense of continuity; of a past preserved that makes the present more special, where time makes no changes; as if the clocks have literally frozen in the hotels' Elysian days.

For a glamorous history and a sepia-tinted trip back to the 1950s heyday of Ocho Rios, the family-run Jamaica Inn remains the best kind of time-warp travel, untouched by any undue modernity (aside from the bathrooms, thankfully). Here, they take matters one step further: there are no TVs, phones, radios or even clocks in any of the rooms. In other words, heaven. So if you want space, style and an old-world kick, it certainly delivers.

The food is reassuringly classic at Teddy's Beach Bar & Grill (excellent shrimp cocktail and perfectly grilled snapper), where an old-school vibe prevails – so you can rediscover the art of the pre-dinner cocktail when cicadas and the clink of Martini glasses remain the most atmospheric soundtrack conceivable. But then everything harks back to a more genteel day, with the whirr of lazy ceiling fans, high tea and croquet on the lawns, hammocks and colonnaded balconies with views of a romantic slick of conch-studded beach.

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It remains a nostalgic comfort zone with such style and panache, not to mention the lure of its divine cornflower-blue cottages – Suite 21, to be specific, where Marilyn Monroe honeymooned with Arthur Miller. For the romantic revivalists out there, wait until you see Ballyfin in Ireland, for what has to be the most flawless realisation of a Regency fantasy imaginable. At the foot of the Slieve Bloom Mountains, it is, quite simply, like stepping into an opulent, candelabra-flickering scene from Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

Few hotels pay so much attention to historical details as this sprawling Irish-Georgian estate, which doubles as a grand 20-bedroom hotel, its spectacular silken interiors restored by Colin Orchard. You can feel the tantalising breath of history sweeping through its spaces, be it the statement chandelier owned by Napoleon's sister that sparkles in the drawing room, or the museum-worthy china cupboard with displays of hand-painted porcelain commissioned by the Crown Prince of Denmark. And then there is the vintage pony and trap in which you can roam around the grounds seeking out the walled garden, or go for an unforgettable picnic in the lichen-speckled folly.

"Landmark" is an often-misused adjective, but Hotel Locarno in Rome is the real deal – an Art Nouveau beauty situated off the Piazza del Popolo, where you can't help but feel a sense of being in a lyrical foreign film. The good life comes easily at this historic bolthole: you want to be drinking a Negroni in the prettiest wisteria-draped courtyard bar, as Cy Twombly and Jack Kerouac would have done before you. And all the suites have the atmosphere you demand from a Roman legend where everyone from Fellini to Wes Anderson has hunkered down, the latter using the property as his pied-à-terre when in town.

This is an incredibly atmospheric hotel, infused with a bygone elegance and reams of charm. You see it in the heavy tasselled room key and the clackety parquet floors, not to mention in some of the historic suites, chock-full of antiques, where the walls remain covered in puffed-up brocade and Murano-glass chandeliers dangle from impossibly ornate moulded ceilings.

Over in Paris – on the Left Bank, to be precise – another institution, L'Hotel, exudes that same kind of raffishly glamorous magic. Too intimate to be a hotel, it's more like a 'museum mansion', as if from another place, another time. You can still hole up in the same suite where Oscar Wilde stayed (the hotel was his last home, and the scene of his death in 1900) – as idiosyncratic as it is romantic, it has been ravishingly redecorated in his honour.

But the hotel remains dramatic and dark, with colonnades, silk lampshades and Ottoman-Empire-style drapes; in the centre is a sensational spiral staircase, and in the basement you'll find a candlelit hammam. For sheer extravagance, you can't beat the Mistinguett room with its statement mirrored bed, where you'll want to recline and order the hotel's signature champagne cocktail, The Usual – created by actress and L'Hotel guest Tilda Swinton, it tastes of Parma Violets. There's a room dedicated to leopard print, and a fabulous, faded animal-print carpet in the lift. It's just all so heady: the people, the history, the peeling grandeur of its glorious architecture – it really must never change.