Old Downton Lodge

Amid rolling hills, where Shropshire nudges Herefordshire, Pippa and Willem Vlok’s restaurant-with-rooms is a picturesque set piece of medieval and Georgian farm buildings. It lies on the historic Downton Estate (not that Downton!), and caters to shooting parties, but you are as welcome to take tea outdoors and just shoot the breeze. Bedrooms occupy former stables and barns, some with lofty, beamed ceilings, perhaps an oak four-poster. ‘Our room was stunning, with a beautiful bathroom with romantic lighting,’ a reader writes. ‘We enjoyed a bottle of wine on the garden chairs overlooking the colourful garden.’ Others take a drink by the log-burner in a sitting room fashioned from a milking parlour. In a baronial-style dining room, Nick Bennett’s cooking is ‘five star’. Although another reader staying for several nights would have liked more variety, ‘ham hock with pineapple chutney and pistachio, and duck breast with beetroot, kohlrabi and cherry were highlights’. ‘Willem, Pippa and their team are knowledgeable, professional and make you feel so special, it’s a hard place to leave!’ (Amanda Bateman, Frances M Thomas, and others)