For many of those who have grown up in or near Rutland, Barnsdale Lodge will long have been a fixture. In my memory it played host to a hunt bash…
Hotel Reviews
The Exmoor Forest Inn and Duredon Farm review
WHILE many of us make the late summer caravanserai to Scotland, there is another destination for discerning sportsmen and naturalists which is the wide open moorland of Exmoor. Here, stags…
The Inn at Whitewell review
In John Martin Robinson’s magnificent book A Guide to the Country Houses of the North West (1991), there are many examples of the private mansions of Lancashire that no longer…
The Peacock at Rowsley hotel review
As one gratefully breaks away from the M1 and sets sail west past Chesterfield’s crooked spire, it is when the hedges give way to stone walls that the transition to…
The Arch, Fonthill – a pitstop in Wiltshire’s best sporting country
The Arch at Fonthill is cartoon grand: a soaring masterpiece built in 1755 to mark the entrance to the original Fonthill estate and welcome a steady flow of Georgian A-listers…
The Victoria – a perfect coastal escape
On the North Norfolk coast the night sky is vast, devoid of light pollution and rather wonderful. This quiet stretch of coastline has been a familiar destination, even before the…
The Pig at Combe: a welcome escape
I’M PRETTY sure the Elizabethans would have experienced the same bonhomie on welcome when The Pig at Combe was first built, in 1580, as we did on arrival. Walking through…
The Goring: an excellent London stay
IT can be trying to find the right place to stay in London; too corporate, too poky, too faceless. But there is one place that seems to encourage a head…
The Duncombe Arms: a proper sporting pit stop
ON a dreich evening, what better than the lights of a decent pub, and even more so when that pub offers everything required of a proper sporting pit stop. Charming…
Kirnan Estate: a bespoke sporting bolthole
THERE are some reasons to turn left when you get to Glasgow, and eschew the well-trodden A9 north. Keep driving west, skirt Loch Fyne and keep the coast in sight,…