‘An agreeable, solidly comfortable base for exploring the area’, Sam and Janet Bakose’s updated 18th-century inn sits off the A272 in the South Downs national park. A plus: ‘the remarkable kitchen turning out very good food indeed’, say Guide inspectors this year. There are balls of fuzzy moss on the low roof tiles, and logs of wood piled up by the front door. Inside, ‘it’s a near-pitch-perfect “great British inn” experience, all exposed-brick walls and archival photographs of the local area; games and a pleasing Penguin collection of food writing; chairs with jauntily patterned cushions’. Motion-sensor lights illuminate the way across a country lane to bedrooms in converted stables, each supplied with magazines, ground coffee, ‘nice teas’, bottled water and biscuits. ‘Our room was enormous, with a high, beamed ceiling; out the picture window, a view of green fields.’ At lunch and dinner, the modern cooking (‘with unusual gastropubby choices’) is ‘inventive yet approachable’; at breakfast, help yourself from a ‘vast’ buffet. ‘We cleaned our plates of large portions of creamy scrambled eggs, good bacon, a generous serving of smoked salmon.’