A short stroll from the world’s oldest distillery, this amiable 17th-century coaching inn on the Causeway Coastal Route is an eclectic jumble of ancient and modern. The public rooms have characterful wooden booths, higgledy-piggledy snugs, inglenook turf fires, a ‘secret’ library. Many of the spacious bedrooms in the mill house, each with its own sitting area, overlook the River Bush. In the bar, still lit by Victorian gas lights, whiskey cocktails and Irish music; in the garden-facing restaurant, modern Irish plates, perhaps slow-braised belted Galloway beef ragu, pappardelle pasta, aged parmesan. Suggested itineraries for days outdoors and indoors form well-considered top-ten lists (‘Ten things to do when it’s raining’, ‘…as a family’, etc). Two miles from the Giant’s Causeway.