Where tradition meets DVDs

The Lygon Arms: Just ignore the 11am check-out time

THE LYGON ARMS, COTSWOLDS

Opened: 1532 (according to records) as the White Hart Inn, although fireplaces exhumed from walls display 14th century craftsmanship. Extended over the centuries. Rechristened in the early 19th century after William Lygon, who bought the land on which the inn stood. Acquired 1986 by the Savoy Group.

Room rate: from £149 (single) to £499 (in the three large suites) B&B.

Reputation: "Quaint hotel in Broadway, thought by many to be the prettiest village in the Cotswolds" (Wedding and Home); "a slice of olde England ... food is fancy and delicious" (You and Your Wedding); "perfectly combines original oak panelling, log fires and four-poster beds with stateofthe-art bathrooms and por table DVD players" (Harpers & Queen).

Is it deserved? Olde and quaint, yes: all inglenooks, crannies and creaky corridors; wan aristos in gilt frames and fireplaces bent by centuries, slung with awesome spit-roast utensils; ruby rugs across cracked black flagstones; oak rafters, rickety as burned matchsticks - in sum, a winner for Americans, Japanese and genteel British folk (BMWs, Mercedes and Jags abound in the car park).

The (justly) trumpeted period rooms and suites are in the photogenic main building; few reviews mention the Garden and Orchard wings, built in 1965 and 1970, perhaps because they look like motels.

"If you definitely want to be in one particular part of the building you should make this point at the time of booking," stresses the management.

Rooms in the lovely Orchard Cottage (herringbone brick, Norfolk thatch, interiors refurbished in spring 2001) are English-country comfy in a way that wouldn't frighten Hyacinth Bucket (pink-satin padded hangers, trouser press for Richard), or dismay Margo Leadbetter: bathrooms have clean, cream tongue-andgroove, handmade tiles, seashells in down-lit recessed shelves and are by far the most superior - others in the Lygon feel less state-of-the-art than guest house.

A Habsburg heaviness in the high, barrel-ceilinged Great Hall lends a delightful Spanish/Viennese whirl to dining proceedings, under the glazed gaze of a a wall-mounted moose head (donated in the 1920s by a local couple who shot it on honeymoon in Canada, but couldn't get it through their front door).

Bereft of a London fashion environment and crowd, the food has to work doubly hard, and it succeeds - dinner on Saturday didn't strike a single false note from starter of salt-cod fritters with French bean salad and tartare sauce (£10.50), to delicately assembled mains: loin of seasonal Costwold lamb with fondant potato, ratatouille and a Madeira jus (£21).

Don't miss: The cool pool in the smart spa - often empty. Sunday bliss.

Room at the top: Great Chamber: original knotty beams knitted into its soaring A-frame; four-poster claimed to date from 1620 - note engraving on headboard; Charles I suite has a wonky adjoining panelled Oak Room lined in blue and white porcelain, with blackened grate and window seats - lacks only a figure in a curly Pepys wig and stockings. Somebody call the BBC drama department.

Worth the money? For a special-occasion weekend in buxom countryside with welloiled service, yes. But scrap the 11am check-out. Who's even up at 11 on a Sunday?

The Lygon Arms (Tel: 01386 852255, www.the-lygon-arms.co.uk).

Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.