‘In a quiet part of the village, overlooking the duck pond’, Jacquie Pern and Peter Neville’s ‘very comfortable hotel’ finds favour with trusted readers. A wide choice of bedrooms includes a ‘single’ (with double bed), doubles and family suites, and the two-storey Pheasant Suite. A ground-floor room had ‘tasteful decor, with a vivid abstract headboard set against patterned paper with gold birds and animal patterns’. There was milk in a small fridge, ground coffee, complimentary sloe gin, a ‘spacious walk-in shower and Cowshed toiletries’. A ‘luxuriously appointed lounge’ was warmed by a ‘designer wood-burner’. In the restaurant, chef/patron Peter Neville’s cooking is ‘consistently good – not least, home-baked olive and Parmesan rolls, locally cured salmon (carved at the table), and an inspired amuse-bouche of carrot soup with grated coconut’. For a main course perhaps herb-fed chicken, salt-baked celeriac, chanterelles, black truffle, lentil velouté. The ‘outstanding’ breakfast includes chilled, freshly squeezed orange juice, porridge with Yorkshire moors heather honey, freshly baked pastries, Hartlepool kippers, ‘perfectly prepared scrambled eggs and fine tea’. (Bill Wood, Robert Gower)