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One frequent cause of argument at home is interior decoration. My ideal interior would be medieval minimal. If you have ever visited the 11th-century manor house Hellens, at Much Marcle, then you will have an idea of what I mean: a giant stone fireplace, stone floor, rugs made from dead animals, dozing dogs, walls uncovered bar the odd Flemish tapestry depicting a hunting scene or possibly a sword, an ancient oak table, a wooden chair on either side of the fire, wine served by a butler wearing pointy shoes, some minstrels in the gallery, candles everywhere and no decadent squashy sofas. Instead, hard wooden benches. In the more cosy medieval parlour room, there would be a high-backed settle. The high back was designed to protect you from draughts. You would point your feet towards the blazing log fire. Behind the settle, there would be a round table with a white tablecloth. Here your wife would serve you a chop and some spiced wine, having washed your feet earlier. Clearly there would be no television or internet, and instead of watching The Wire, we would read each other tales of derring-do.

One recent success in working towards this fantasy at home has been a nightly reading by the fire from Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. To my great shame, I realised that I had never read this great poem — I had always assumed it was deadly tedious. However, it turns out to be a fantastically violent tale of fair ladies, noble knights, put-upon dwarves, evil friars, dark forests, hidden caves and cutting the heads off stinking dragons, which then spew filthy black poison full of blind toads from their necks. Very suitable for children, then, and Henry, who is four, has been enjoying it greatly.

Interiors-wise, Victoria’s style is more Victorian cosy. She would prefer three squashy sofas gathered around the fire and a coffee table covered with books and magazines, and a DVD box set for the winter. The walls would be covered with 18th-century portraits of aristocratic ladies in the style of (or preferably by) Joshua Reynolds. Something like the Wallace Collection, but with no Annunciations.

Well, I love William Morris, too. I hanker after some William Morris curtains for my study. And this love of William Morris we share, gratifyingly, with Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley, TE Lawrence, John Betjeman and Kenneth Clark, all of whom used his designs. Morris was not actually a fan of luxury: “I have never been in any rich man’s house which would not have looked the better for having a bonfire made outside it of nine-tenths of all that it held.”

There exists in England also a very unhappy style, which one sees very much in evidence in country pubs, and that is the look that my friend Oli refers to as farmers’ gothic. This is a vague and cheap imitation of a grand Victorian interior, and comprises elements such as swirly carpet, wood chip, cheap hunting prints, plates on the walls, flock wallpaper and electric lights in fake black candle holders, complete with running-wax effect. This style is sometimes found in B&Bs that advertise “tea- and coffee-making facilities”. You will find thin flowery curtains, side tables with glass tops, a colour television protruding from a sort of telescoping wall bracket, a tiny kettle and a cup full of sachets of Nescafé.

Now, one man who has strong views on interior design is the multidimensional antiques dealer Martin Miller. Miller publishes the Miller’s Antiques Price Guides. He also makes and sells Martin Miller’s gin, and he runs Miller’s Residence, a small hotel in Westbourne Grove, west London. Then there is Miller’s at Glencot House, a grand hotel near Wookey Hole. He ran Miller’s Academy of Arts and Sciences, a west London members’ club, where Oliver James and I recently lectured Notting Hill bankers’ wives on the merits of thrift. Miller is a decadent and sociable bon vivant with long grey hair, and one of his websites features a picture of him wearing a fluffy white shirt, surrounded by a crowd of Bright Young Things, in the Brian Howard, decadent-1920s mould.

Clearly, then, not a shy and retiring type, he has recently bought the Anchor Hotel near the coastal village of Porlock, in north Somerset, and renamed it Miller’s at the Anchor. Miller’s hotels are decorated in Miller’s trademark style, which we might call Miller’s maximal. A Miller’s interior is a veritable riot of prints and paintings, vases, chandeliers, busts, candles, cabinets offering curiosities such as shells, human skulls and curious pieces of Victorian clockwork, butterfly cases, piles of books (mostly his own) lying everywhere. There are stuffed animals, deer antlers, dark red patterned curtains with gold tassels... It’s rather how you might imagine Oscar Wilde’s salon to have looked. It’s all done with exuberance and not a little wit.

At Millers at the Anchor, you are greeted by the charming and chatty Tanya, one of Miller’s five daughters. We were shown into the drawing room. I had a Miller’s gin and tonic, and Victoria had a glass of champagne. We immediately started arguing about interiors. Victoria said she wanted our sitting room to look more like this, but I argued that, while I am a fan of candles, if we at home had red walls and side tables everywhere, the room would instantly become a nightmare of mess and dirt. “Arguing already?” said Tanya as she walked in. We studied the good, solid, quite rich menu. At home, we dine frugally on bread and soup, but like William Morris, I am occasionally afflicted with a lust for pig’s flesh, so I ordered the pork chop, but there was also sea bass on offer. Victoria ordered the beef wellington, which, the menu boasted, had been hung for 32 days. We went into the dining room to sit down. It was pretty quiet: only one other couple, and no romantic poets taking laudanum, although I noticed in the visitors’ book that the long-haired languid poet Murray Lachlan Young has visited the hotel.

We sat at a round table by the window, overlooking the harbour. On the windowsill was a poinsettia. On the table was a white tablecloth and a candle, and I’d like to say here: I really love white tablecloths. They are an ancient and very simple way of covering the table, and look classy and homely at once. Any farmers’ gothic pub could improve itself immeasurably simply by throwing a white tablecloth on each table. We now absolutely stuffed ourselves. I had a nice prawn cocktail to start, while the trouble-and-strife enjoyed her light Thai lemongrass soup. Her beef wellington was indeed very tender. I had ordered Miller’s thrice-cooked chips as a side order, and that was a mistake because my pork chop came with a gigantic pile of mashed potato. It was all excellent stuff, and there was a lot of it. With our starters, we each had a glass of white rioja that the wife called “quite interesting”, then shared a bottle of red for the main course. It was a Rhône 2005 Domaine La Roquètte Châteauneuf de Pape, and it really did taste of the warm south.

Tanya saw us slumped in our seats, groaning. She suggested we might like to take our cheese by the fire, so we flopped down by the hearth in squashy sofas, finished the wine, ate crackers, had a brandy, groaned and argued about interiors. It was most enjoyable.

It ain’t cheap. The bill was £150. So the whole thing was absurdly decadent, ridiculously indulgent and even silly. Great fun, but just a bit too much of everything. I guess that is the idea, so good for Miller and thanks for the design tips, but I think I’ll keep my journeys to the centre of his psyche occasional, rather than habitual.

AA Gill is away

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