The George of Stamford

Behind a Georgian facade, Lawrence Hoskins’s rambling coaching inn, with beams, wood panelling and ‘elegant period windows’, embodies the remains of far older buildings. ‘Do not go if you’re looking for anything crisp, contemporary or linear,’ says a reader, who relishes the inn’s ‘warmly welcoming, historical embrace’. From a standard room with handmade bed and contemporary furnishings to a four-poster suite with lattice window and stone fireplace, each bedroom is different. ‘We had an excellent panelled room. Sheets and blankets (hurrah!) and a good bathroom,’ another reader writes. When yet another complained about a lack of storage, a chest of drawers promptly arrived. Men don a jacket to dine in the Oak Room, where Mark Alsop, now promoted to chef, cooks classics and more innovative dishes. Maybe ‘tempura king prawns then the best calf’s liver I’ve had for many years’. There is more bistro-style fare in the Garden Room. You can eat in the lovely courtyard or try ‘a fine-quality cheese and ham toastie’ in the bar. The whole George experience ‘feels like entering an older, more reliable world’. (John Barnes, IB, and others)