In a village known as the ‘jewel of the Cotswolds’, Andrew and Gaynor Riley’s restaurant-with-rooms occupies Sir Gordon Russell’s former furniture showroom facing the grass-fringed, chestnut-shaded ‘broad way’. The English designer brought together a craftsman’s values with a modern aesthetic – a quality that has carried through to this more contemporary affair. Within the 17th-century mellow-stone building, the bedrooms – ‘most of them special in their own way’ – marry beams and joists with air conditioning, a modern bathroom, all the expected technology. Each room is supplied with bathrobes and smart toiletries; superior rooms also have a comfortable seating area. Dine on the front terrace or in the restaurant, where chef Neil Clarke wins praise for his ‘excellent’ modern cooking, perhaps spiced carrot and coconut soup; whole lemon sole, salsa verde, saffron potatoes. If you fancy a fish fry, the Rileys’ ‘delicious, good-value’ chippy nearby gets the thumbs up. Breakfast, ‘cooked accurately and well’, is served in the front of the restaurant, ‘where the view across the High Street and the village green launches one nicely into each new day’. (T and SM, CR)