Flanked by the 18th-century stone bridge after which it’s named, Graham and Rachel Bucknall’s ‘characterful’ restaurant-with-rooms on the water has much to like. A ‘cheerful team’, managed by Jackie Fergus, imbues ‘an easy, informal air’, especially in the ‘lively’ pub (it’s popular with locals, but Guide readers ‘didn’t notice any noise’). Between the crackling fires and wide range of Scottish ales and whiskies, the ‘smart’ public rooms have everything needed to keep the cockles cosy. In the ‘light-filled’ restaurant, freshly picked produce from the walled garden, just up the canal, transforms in chef Ben Watson’s ‘delicious’ dishes, perhaps winter green risotto, blue cheese, pine nut crumble; or roast pinwheel sausage made with the owners’ rare breed pigs. At night, the murmur of the canal below filters into each of the tastefully neutral bedrooms. Come morning, there is haggis and tattie scones, the Canadian breakfast, and (collected across the canal) the freshest duck eggs cooked ‘to your liking’, all part of the ‘enormous, very good’ breakfast. To burn it off, make the seven-mile yomp along the historic Union Canal’s ‘pretty’ towpath into Edinburgh. More reports, please.