Run with ‘an easy, informal air’, Graham and Rachel Bucknall’s ‘bright, lively’ inn on the historic Union Canal has ‘all the character you could hope for’. Jackie Fergus manages a ‘cheerful team’. Bright fires warm the ‘smartly decorated’ guest parlour and popular pub; an admirable range of Scottish ales and whiskies warms the hearts of locals and visitors. Upstairs, smart, rustic bedrooms overlooking the canal are given modern touches (a flat-screen TV, good Wi-Fi, tea- and coffee-making facilities). Each is different from the others: duck-egg-blue Bonnington has a mahogany four-poster bed and an antique chandelier; pretty Baird, with a freestanding slipper bath in the bathroom, has space for an extra bed. In the ‘light-filled’ restaurant, chef Ben Watson’s ‘delicious’ fare uses plenty of freshly picked produce from the ‘huge, interesting’ walled garden, a stroll up the canal. A typical dish, made with pork from the owners’ rare-breed pigs: caramelised onion and black pepper sausage, mashed potato, crackling, Ramsay’s black pudding. Breakfast is ‘enormous’ and ‘very good’, with haggis, tattie scones and eggs from the ducks up the way.