The Mustard Seed at Echo Lodge

Every painting, sculpture and piece of furniture feels cherished and chosen at John Edward Joyce’s Victorian country mansion in landscaped gardens. Mantelpieces are crowded with Irish Delft figurines, a jug picked up in Poland, a motley herd of elephants. Vases brim with flowers and artwork crowds walls painted in heritage shades. Traditional-style bedrooms, either in the main house with its hand-carved oak staircase, and in the old school-house wing, have fabrics and wallpaper by Zoffany, Jane Churchill, Cole & Son. All are supplied with Handmade Soap Co toiletries, while an accessible room has doors opening on to the garden. The staff are enthusiastic. ‘A waitress furnished us with a vivid description of all the places we must not miss.’ In the deep-blue restaurant with wedding-cake plaster ceiling, Angel Pirev’s dishes burst with the freshness of the kitchen garden and orchard. They might include squash risotto with asparagus and caramelised baby red onions or guineafowl, nameko mushrooms, leek, mushroom ketchup, fried sage. Breakfast might bring smoked salmon with potato, crème fraîche, and eggs from the pampered hens. (PH)