There is a touch of the baronial about this pink sandstone Tudor-style 19th-century mansion, a country-house hotel with fine original features, its public rooms adorned with shooting trophies. Stags' heads gaze out above a grand staircase to lofty first-floor bedrooms, three with modern four-posters. Spacious second-floor rooms have the same unfussy mix of period and contemporary furnishings, splashes of tartan, comfy seating. 'Our first-floor room was of a decent size but slightly let down by poor-quality bed linen,' writes a reader, who enjoyed the views to the Cheviots across the Tweed valley. Chef Kirsty Duff cooks a nightly 'delicious and inventive' four-course dinner of locally sourced produce, 'always a game option'. For instance, pan-seared venison fillet with Café de Paris sauce, black truffle, parmesan fries, charred broccoli, vine-roasted tomato. A 'spacious sitting room with fire burning' is a sea of deep sofas, ideal for relaxing with a nightcap of single malt. 'An ideal base from which to explore the Borders', after 'a well-executed' cooked breakfast, it is popular with shooting parties. (Frances Thomas, Nigel Mackintosh, B and J H)