Thistleyhaugh Farm

This ‘excellent, traditional farmhouse B&B’, with huge bedrooms, generous hospitality and breakfasts to fuel the day, is now in the capable hands of the family’s second generation of hosts. The Nellesses’ organic farm, reached by country lanes, feels remote yet is only two miles from the main road. In autumn, the ‘picture-book perfect’ Georgian farmhouse’s Virginia creeper-covered walls ‘glow like a scarlet beacon in the quiet Northumbrian countryside’. Downstairs rooms are understatedly elegant with polished antiques and well-upholstered sofas while ‘very comfortable’ bedrooms have huge mahogany wardrobes, ‘proper towel rails and dressing tables’, and broderie anglaise bedcovers. ‘Well-stocked’ trolleys include fresh milk and home-made biscuits; there are roll-top baths in the bathrooms. ‘Breakfast was excellent with fresh orange juice’ and a range of cooked items. ‘Extremely good’ light suppers of sandwiches, ‘a delicious dessert and excellent cheeseboard’ are served in the fire-warmed sitting room. Zoe and Janice continue the famed Nelless hospitality; ‘the welcome is unchanged and is as warm as ever’. (Mary Hewson, and others)