"We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us." - Winston Churchill

I live in an old dockside loft dating back to 1846 (the same buildings allegedly inspired the Oliver Twist tales), and it's a former spice warehouse laced with quirks that no one can define.

Within the aged, naked brick walls are my treasured design classics, modern artefacts, family heirlooms, and a few flea-market finds I am convinced one day will be worth a small fortune. Glued to Churchill's words, the building narrated my interior choice – the combo of history and design, worn comfort and eclectism, which are the trademarks I love?(my other loves are modernism, minimalism, maximalism and randomness). So, this Sunday, we shall stick to the mantra of oldness with a run-down of our places that have hosted Counts, Queens, Bishops, Mozart and the 17th-century entrepreneurs of the day.

Peeling off more paint layers than the downtown striptease, these hotel hotties of heritage?bare all, exposing their beautiful scars of history, including our newest find in Bavaria dating back to 1236, ?then check out an?alpine refugium in a house from the times of merchants travelling along the Romanesque Via Claudia Augusta in Val Venosta, a former 18th-century Jesuit monastery on the island of Mallorca?to a?13th-century Venetian-Byzantine palace.?

These?hotels are pleasingly imperfect in form -??the walls lean out, the floors slant, beams are warped, and doors need a little nudge.

Gorgeously blemished, characterful and comforting, slip into bed with history and amigos,?fear not -?these flawed walls have seen it all, and thankfully, they don't talk.

Iain &?Co.