‘A warm welcome and excellent food’ add up to a ‘thoroughly enjoyable’ stay at Nicola and Steve Reynolds’s pub-with rooms, say Guide readers this year. The ‘lovely old inn’, hops hanging from its beamed ceiling, is a relaxed, unpretentious outfit, with ‘friendly, professional’ staff. There are real ales and local gins, and characterful ‘nooks and crannies’ in which to drink them. (Watch out for ‘unexpected steps to trap the unwary’.) Steve Reynolds cooks ‘a wonderful dinner’, perhaps of artichoke soup (‘the best I’ve tasted’) or scallops with ‘the tastiest pickled cauliflower’; but ‘leave room for pudding!’ Afterward, bed down in a quiet room at the back of the inn, or in the antique-packed Georgian vicarage down the country road (the hosts offer to drive the distance). ‘Our spacious, well-appointed bedroom in the Old Vicarage had a large, very comfortable bed, and super toiletries in the bathroom. A minor grouse: poor bedside lighting. But we felt so well looked after, we didn’t mind.’ In the morning, scoop generous spoons of home-made marmalade at ‘one of the best breakfasts ever’. (Kate MacMaster, RMP, MH)