Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Under enthusiastic owner Marc Bridgen this ancient pub is today ‘less a local than a comfortable lounge bar’ and canine-friendly restaurant-with-rooms. The timber-frame building, ‘outside a pretty village’, enters the Guide this year after an inspection by our sleuth-hounds. Their bedroom, styled by Marc’s interior designer mother, Marilyn, was ‘comfortably sized’, with ‘glitzy touches, a huge, gold velvet-framed bedhead, gold and orange tub chairs, a sunburst mirror, light grey walls with one painted lovat green; a neatly designed shower room’. Some noise was heard from the room above. In the beamed bar, ‘comfortable tweedy chairs, all with a sheepskin draped over’, a log-burner and ‘lots of dog pictures’. In the dining room ‘the quality and style’ of Samuel McClurkin’s cooking impressed, especially ‘honeyed carrots, a revelation; lobster ravioli and bisque, very good;  feta and mushroom Wellington, deserved praise’. Breakfast, in the conservatory, was ‘somewhat mixed’. Orange juice wasn’t fresh, ‘perfect poached eggs and hollandaise but overcooked bacon’. Overall: ‘Winning value for money.’ (Joanna Crossley, Vicky Cox, and others)