Goldstone Hall

Everything in the garden is lovely at John and Sue Cushing’s red brick Georgian manor house hotel in dairy-farming country five miles outside Market Drayton. Double-tiered herbaceous borders, a rose-lined walkway, laburnum arch, and one of the UK’s largest hotel kitchen gardens are perennial delights. When you sit down to dine, the kale with your sirloin of beef might be Uncle Bert’s Purple, the tomato with your chalk stream trout Darby Striped – just two of the heritage varieties grown here. ‘The roses were magnificent,’ writes a reader, ‘the garden a joy to explore.’ Bedrooms are supplied with fresh milk in a fridge and home-made cookies. One deluxe room has an antique four-poster. The chambers have a hand-built bed, a large bath and wet-room shower. A reader there for a single night ‘wished we could have stayed longer’. Another reader thought the willing junior staff were ‘in need of more training’ but, on the plus side, found ‘the food was of a consistently high standard, with plenty of fruit on offer at the breakfast buffet’, while ‘poached egg on smashed avocado on sourdough toast was a welcome change’. (Christine Hughes, John Saul, and others)