More tasteful developments this year among the potpourri of Georgian estate buildings that create James Allison’s hotel ‘in beautiful countryside a few miles from Scotch Corner’. The flair of architect partner Rebecca Tappin is evident in bedrooms (some for a family) in the newly restored dairy, some with an outdoor hot tub and private terrace. The serene suites blend creams, mellow wood and stand-alone baths – one a spectacular copper tub. Other rooms are laced through the coach house, potting sheds and a rustic-chic farmhouse, where guests enjoy a lounge with exposed brickwork, sofas and wood-burner. Readers tell us that the coach house’s Tack room is ‘amazing, double height with original beams and shutters, a comfortable bed’, a bathroom ‘almost as big’. Changes on the food front, too. To go with the relaxed all-day menu of the restaurant in former stables, a new fine-dining option, Forge, where Gareth Rayner uses produce grown in the estate’s kitchen garden, foraged in its woods, or reared on nearby farms, perhaps Yorkshire duck, beetroot, grilled cabbage, elderberry vinegar. Breakfast is ‘excellent’.