‘Positively flourishing’, the Leslie family’s sprawling estate has remained in the hands of its founding family for nearly three and a half centuries. ‘The whole place is well run, with polite and attentive staff.’ Bedrooms are in the castle – each wildly different, each with a tale to tell – and in the stone-built lodge, a ‘splendidly labyrinthine Victorian pile’. ‘Our very smart, very comfortable Lodge room was well designed, with a good bathroom.’ Fill the waking hours: traipse into ancient woodland with a picnic lunch; try for monster pike in the lough; discover the 19th-century walled garden; take afternoon tea in the castle’s high-ceilinged drawing room; borrow a pair of wellies and head off on a stomp through the integrated wetlands. In the evening, choose an informal country-style dinner at Conor’s bar, or dine on more modern dishes (perhaps baked pork fillet, braised rib, pork tail rillettes, spiced baby apple) in Snaffles restaurant. Have a right royal time at breakfast, too, with home-baked breads and home-made preserves, leaf teas, ‘butter served in a proper dish’. (EC)