Owned by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, and sitting within the Chatsworth Estate, this smart hotel is a great base for exploring the Peak District. The building – an inn since 1700 – has been extended and updated. Superior rooms, some with a four-poster, some with an original iron fireplace, occupy the oldest part. They have antiques, artwork; a new bathroom (part of a recent refurbishment). ‘Beautiful and stylish’ so-called ‘standard’ rooms in the Devonshire Wing have also been updated. New rooms in a restored coach house have a four-poster, and antiques hand-picked from Chatsworth House. All rooms are supplied with ground coffee, ‘shortbread and fresh milk in a jug refilled every day’. In the fine-dining restaurant, Alan Hill’s menus include such dishes as breast, haggis and shoulder of Chatsworth Estate lamb. Guests can eat less formally in the Garden Room, perhaps honey-roast Derbyshire ham, egg and hand-cut chips; smoked ham-hock burger; meatballs with linguine. The service is ‘friendly without being over-familiar’. At breakfast there are organic Chatsworth yogurts, locally smoked kippers, Scottish smoked haddock, eggs Benedict with Lincolnshire ham. (SW)