‘We were made so welcome and were well looked after,’ writes a reader, of a stay at this pub-with-rooms at the meeting point of two old drovers’ roads. Steve and Nicola Reynolds are in their nineteenth year here, and in 2001 this became the first British pub to be awarded a Michelin star. Accommodation at the inn is snug and can be noisy at weekends. For quiet, choose one of three ‘spacious, well-appointed’ rooms in the ‘beautiful’ Georgian vicarage four minutes’ walk away, with guest sitting room and lovely garden, where the only sound is the church bell chimes. They are supplied with fresh milk, ground coffee, a minibar; one has an in-room bath and separate shower room. Back in the pub, there are plenty of food options, from a three-cheese ploughman’s or home-cured salmon sandwich in the bar, to Steve Reynolds’s creative restaurant dishes – maybe venison loin and slow-cooked shoulder, celeriac, chestnuts, kalettes, or one of the appealing vegetarian options. For children there are home-made fish goujons, hand-made sausages with mash. ‘The best breakfast ever’ includes fresh-baked bread, new-laid, free-range eggs. (KMcM)