Lorum Old Rectory

If the locally made grandfather clock in the hall is the beating heart of this Victorian rectory-turned-B&B in the Barrow river valley, hostess Bobbie Smith is the life and soul. With daughter Rebecca, Bobbie welcomes guests into her childhood home, filled with antiques, squashy sofas, fresh-cut flowers, pewter mugs, brassware, fringed lamps, paintings and prints. All four bedrooms, with views of the Blackstairs mountains, have period furniture, home-made biscuits, a shower room with power shower. A spacious dual-aspect bedroom, painted a dreamy blue, has a carved four-poster, an original fireplace, and a bookcase full of well-thumbed novels. Dinner is served communally by candlelight in a crimson dining room, with cabinets of crystal and china, watched by Frans Hals’s eternally smiling cavalier. Readers abandoned plans to eat out, preferring to stay in every night for a dinner cooked by Bobbie, a member of chefs’ group Euro-Toques Ireland, using local, home-grown organic ingredients. The full Irish breakfast provides ballast for a day’s cycling, walking, fishing, a round of golf, or croquet on the lawn.