‘The warm welcome, beautiful setting and delicious food’ are ‘truly exceptional’ at Charles Lowther’s battlemented ancestral pile. A medieval pele tower extended over centuries, this is a child-friendly, dog-friendly family home, with a 17th-century topiary garden, prolific kitchen garden, rustic café, and animal-viewing area with goats, pigs, ducks and shorthorn cattle. Public lounges have a scuffed homeyness, real fires, an honesty bar. Bedrooms are large, some huge, some interconnecting. The dual-aspect Admiral’s Room was a favourite of the Duke of Edinburgh; the duplex Train Room (once home to a model railway) has a log-burner, a built-in four-poster; Griffin has a stone fireplace and an oak-panelled bathroom with antique roll-top bath. Chef Richard Swale’s ‘creative dishes’ are ‘strongly rooted in local, seasonal produce’, garnered from kitchen garden, orchard, farms, and moors, with seasonal game. This year, he won a coveted Michelin star. Typical dishes: home-reared goose, celeriac, chicory and gizzard salad, sour cherry sauce; skrei cod, maple-glazed carrots, artichoke, roasted fish and hazelnut sauce. New this year in Askham village is a ‘health and well-being hub’.