Built in 1652 as a manor house, this stone inn on the edge of the Peak District national park is owned by Lord and Lady Manners of nearby Haddon Hall. In springtime, festoons of white wisteria and early roses frame leaded, mullioned windows. Public rooms are filled with antiques, paintings; ancestral portraits hang above blazing fires. Trout in display cases in reception attest to good fly-fishing in the River Derwent at the bottom of the garden, and in the Wye on the Haddon estate. Smart bedrooms, too, have original artworks, perhaps a bespoke four-poster; two are single, with shower room. Marble bathrooms are supplied with good toiletries. The cosy, beamed bar serves fish and chips, sandwiches, Derbyshire burger of lamb shoulder, while in the restaurant, chef Dan Smith uses local produce and organic meat from the estate in such dishes as beef fillet and cheek, artichoke, spring cabbage, miso; lamb cutlet, onion, broad beans, goat’s curd, boulangère potatoes. Staff are ‘friendly and efficient’, the food is ‘fantastic’. A credit, then, to the Manners family, whose crest, a strutting peacock, is rightly proud.