The Acorn Inn

You can sink a pint of Durdle Door in the oak-panelled bar in the village inn that furnished Thomas Hardy with his ‘Sow and Acorn’ in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, then stay the night in one of the bedrooms named on a Hardy theme. As well as a ‘great atmosphere’, acorn motifs are everywhere, from a carved four-poster to the fireplace in the bar. A reader found staff ‘extremely helpful’ in planning a family celebration. Tess room, with an antique four-poster, proved ‘smallish, but had a bay window and was entirely adequate’, although ‘the shower cabinet was slightly antiquated’. The loft suite was ‘ideal for two adults, two teenagers and dog’. In the restaurant, with its floral furnishings, ‘food was superb’, with ‘very tasty soups, memorable twice-baked Cornish crab and Yarg cheese soufflé’. Another reader, though, judged dinner only as ‘ok’, although agreed that ‘breakfast was good’. ‘Excellent fruit salad, delicious choice on the cooked menu.’ There’s a skittle alley in the pub, which is part of the Red Carnation group, and for £15 guests have use of the spa at sister hotel Summer Lodge (next entry). (Jane Thornton, and others)