bolthole

• bolt-hole

bolt +‎ hole

bolthole (plural boltholes)

1. A hole in an animal's den, or through a wall or fence, used for escape or emergency exit; i.e. a hole the animal may bolt through.
2. (figurative) A second home, etc. where a person can go to escape the stresses of everyday life.

   a bolthole in the Dordogne

   • 1965, Frank Herbert, Dune‎ (Science Fiction), New York: Ace Books, →OCLC, page 205‎:

     “We’ll find a home among the Fremen,” Paul said, “where your Missionaria Protectiva has bought us a bolt hole.”
     They’ve prepared a way for us in the desert, Jessica told herself. But how can he know of the Missionaria Protectiva?

   • 2016 February 29, Oliver Wainwright, “Two pools, 13 bathrooms and 300 for dinner: the modernist fun palaces of Palm Springs”, in The Guardian‎:

     In the 1950s, Hollywood decamped to the desert – bankrolling the world’s most daring modernist architects to create ever more experimental boltholes.

   • 2023 September 24, Carole Cadwalladr, “‘Capitalism is dead. Now we have something much worse’: Yanis Varoufakis on extremism, Starmer, and the tyranny of big tech”, in The Observer‎, →ISSN:

     Because even a modernist villa on a hillside on the island of Aegina – a fast ferry ride from the port of Piraeus and the summer bolthole of chic Athenians – is not the sanctuary from the modern world that it might once have been.

   • 2023 December 27, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: the way to Weymouth”, in RAIL, number 999, page 55:

     It was on this "beautiful terrace" that "George III, and the royal family resided". Bradshaw tells me that George stayed at the Royal Lodge, which I believe was his nearby holiday bolthole - Gloucester Lodge.