For ‘a quiet weekend in a friendly, characterful hotel among bucolic surroundings’, John and Sue Cushing’s red brick Georgian manor ‘fits the bill perfectly’. One of its trump cards is the ‘extraordinary’ kitchen garden, source of most of Goldstone’s vegetables and summer fruit, along with 100 different herbs – part of grounds developed by John’s mother that open to the public each year under the National Garden scheme. Indoors, a Guide insider enjoyed plenty of ‘bright, peaceful’ lounges with upright leather chairs and sofas, a couple of them with a fireplace, while the ‘smallish’ beamed Arts and Crafts-style dining room has a fireplace, ‘nicely separated tables’, starched white linen. It is the stage for new chef David Jones’s ‘beautifully presented’ dishes, perhaps loin of rabbit, broad beans, asparagus, morels, shoulder bon bons, pickled potatoes with a local cheese platter. A ‘delicious breakfast’ includes freshly squeezed juices, and an ‘excellent vegetarian cooked option’. In ‘tastefully furnished’ bedrooms ‘super-comfy’ beds provide ‘an excellent night’s sleep’. Bathrobes, fresh milk, home-baked biscuits are provided. Grapevines have been planted in the garden, promising a tasty addition to the autumn cheese board.