Room at the inn: a dozen of the best British pubs for a winter weekend

1. The Bull’s Head, Craswall, Herefordshire

This remote drovers’ tavern in the foothills of the Black Mountains is typical of the thoughtful new breed of pub cropping up around the country. It was taken on in 2021 by Jake Townley (chef) and brother-in-law Ed Dickson (sales manager turned farmer) and their families, who moved back to the Welsh borders in search of a slower life. On their regenerative farm, native breeds of cattle and sheep graze on hillside pastures, and there’s a nose-to-tail approach at the on-farm butchery, turning out the dry-aged steaks and home-cured prosciutto.

In a meadow behind the slate-walled pub, four timber cabins opened this year, with big picture windows and wide covered decks. From here, it’s six miles down a wiggling single-track lane to Hay-on-Wye, or stride straight out up Black Hill, to be rewarded afterwards with a pint of creamy Nightjar stout from Wye Valley Brewery beside the fire. Cabins sleeping two from £210 per night, including a breakfast box of local produce; wildbynaturellp.com

2. The Kirkstyle Inn, Slaggyford, Northumberland

In the blustery borderlands seven miles south of Hadrian’s Wall, this handsome pub is an unexpected find in the out-of-the-way North Pennines hamlet of Slaggyford. Reimagined in 2023 by restaurateur Nick Parkinson (son of the celebrated television interviewer Michael), it still attracts locals who sit on the blue leather stools and prop up the bar, but now they stay for chef Connor Wilson’s game-centric menu.

This largely unvisited corner of the country is even more peaceful in winter. “The wild ponies at Midgeholme, next to the quarry, are a wonderful sight and an easy hike,” says Parkinson. “Or there’s what locals rightly call Paradise Walk (start by following the signpost to Hanging Shaw) — the low winter sun casts a beautiful light.” Four rooms above the pub are decorated in inky blues, smoky greens and soft pinks inspired by the landscape, or there’s the six-bedroom Old Rectory next door. Doubles from £150, room only; theksi.co.uk

3. The Taybank, Dunkeld, Perthshire

The long Scottish winter nights are a lively time at The Taybank. There are Thursday-night traditional music sessions, Christmas Eve carols and a Burns Supper at the end of January when the house-made haggis (venison, pork and a secret blend of spices) is ceremoniously piped into the dining room.

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Owner Fraser Potter used to drink here as a teen, and since he took over the pub in 2019 there’s a palpable energy to the auld doll: the former car park is now a huge beer garden on the banks of the Tay, the riverside Braan Sauna was handcrafted by Potter and pals, there are newly productive polytunnels in an old walled kitchen garden and a buzz of plans for festivals. The serene bedrooms come with breakfast hampers filled with Great Glen Charcuterie and croissants from Aran Bakery on the high street. Then blow off the hangover with a crunch up wooded Birnam Hill opposite. Doubles from £190, including a local breakfast hamper; thetaybank.co.uk

4. The Abbey Inn, Byland, North Yorkshire

In 2013, at the age of 24, Tommy Banks was cooking at his family’s gastropub, The Black Swan at Oldstead, when he became Britain’s youngest chef to receive a Michelin star. A decade on — and The Black Swan now a serious tasting menu destination — Banks took over the Abbey Inn, just over a mile up the road, planning to keep it more casual, with Timothy Taylor on the pumps and sausage and mash on the menu.

Many of the ingredients come from the family’s farm, and the pub has just been awarded Best Sunday Roast by the Good Food Guide for its epic feasts of rolled Berkshire pork belly or roast leg of Herdwick lamb. Two of the three bedrooms look out on to the moody ruins of Byland Abbey. In winter, you’ll find Banks walking his dog on wind-whipped Sandsend beach (an hour’s drive) or, you can stomp out into the North York Moors on a circular route from the pub that loops through woodland and past the stone tower of Mount Snever Observatory. Doubles from £195, room only; abbeyinnbyland.co.uk

5. The Sun Inn, Felmersham, Bedfordshire

This thatched-roofed free house in the riverside village of Felmersham is ridiculously pretty, and was revamped last year by two local couples. The farming half, JJ and Laura Ibbett, rear grass-fed Hereford beef, pork, Boer goats and poultry on their Wild Berry Farm, and whole carcasses are brought to the pub’s own butchery. Head chef and co-owner Pete Pestell whips it up into The Farmers Table tasting menu, which might include his Hereford osso buco Milanese (there’s a vegan Greengrocers Table too, stuffed with squash and beetroot dishes).

There are just two bedrooms: smaller Dusk, painted in a moody green, and split-level Dawn, with a huge brass bath. For early risers, Pestell recommends a frosty morning walk through nearby Woburn Estate deer park, or bird lovers can stroll the wetlands of Felmersham Gravel Pits nature reserve. Doubles from £170, including breakfast; thesunfelmersham.com

6. The Merry Harriers, Hambledon, Surrey

When young local pair Alex Winch and Sam Fiddian-Green took over this 16th-century Surrey Hills pub in 2023, there was one thing they couldn’t touch: the traditional 5pm Saturday meat raffle. “You’ve never seen anyone get so excited about a pack of sausages or chicken supremes,” says Winch, previously restaurant manager at London’s Portland.

After a walk in nearby Winkworth Arboretum, install yourself at the prime table in front of the inglenook fireplace, before the bar steadily fills with villagers and dogs. Chef Fiddian-Green dishes up elevated but unfussy dishes of slow-braised beef cooked in local ale or pheasant schnitzel with pickled red cabbage. The four beamed bedrooms above the pub have been redone; there are also five shepherd huts and 10 acres out back, which next year will be turned into a smallholding so the food miles can be measured in metres. Doubles from £140, including breakfast; merryharriers.com

7. The Swan Inn, Fittleworth, West Sussex

Tucked in the South Downs, The Swan has served as a coaching inn between the coast and London since the 16th century. It later became a hub for artists — both JMW Turner and John Constable stayed, their paintings of Fittleworth Mill now part of the collections at the Tate Britain and V&A. The Swan’s latest custodian, Sussex-born Angus Davies, has given the pub more than a lick of paint before it reopened this week: replacing the roof and decking out the 12 bedrooms with deep beds handmade in Devon, and even deeper roll-top baths.

Artist guests used to pay for lodgings with paintings, some of which still hang on the walls (no Turners or Constables, unfortunately) and for the artistically inclined, Petworth’s Newlands House gallery is up the road and Charleston, the Bloomsbury group’s Sussex retreat, an hour’s drive east. Or take Davies’ tip and ramble up Bignor Hill to work up an appetite for the pub’s South Downs venison and bacon pie. Doubles from £175, room only; swaninnfittleworth.com

8. The Sherborne Arms, Northleach, Gloucestershire

The Cotswolds’ honeyed villages are as packed with sceney pub openings as they are with shiny Land Rovers, with attention-grabbing newcomers including Bull in Burford, The Bull in Charlbury and the Village Pub in Barnsley (from the folk behind The Pig hotels). Local lads Tom Noest and Peter Creed offer something more solidly pub-like with their slowly expanding group, reopening this half-timbered spot on Northleach’s market square in May last year.

“At this time of year we’re all about game,” says Creed, of the winter dishes. “We work with two estates. One has a shoot where we cater, and in return get pheasant and partridge. The other has a 2,000-acre deer park where we get our venison.” Find it on the menu right now as venison faggots and split peas. The pub’s three bedrooms are pleasingly simple, and a bargain for these parts. There’s no breakfast, but pop next door to Lynwood & Co for a walk-fuelling bacon sarnie. Doubles from £99, room only; thesherbornenorthleach.com

9. The Manor House Inn, Ditcheat, Somerset

Brother and sister Ethan and Jordan Davids grew up above their parents’ Barford Inn in Wiltshire. Now teamed up with old school friend Tommy Tullis under the banner of the Chickpea Group, these new-generation publicans have brought a fresh blast of good times to their fast-expanding group of West Country boozers.

The Manor House Inn, opening in January, will be the eighth, and will stick to the template of a cosy, friendly bar and menu of “pub bangers” that always includes a Scotch egg and comfort classics like homemade beef-and-stout pie. There are four bright bedrooms above the pub and five in the old stable block annexe outside. The fields all around are good for walking, and the nearby Wraxall Vineyard offers tours and tastings. Doubles from £95, including breakfast; manorhouseinnditcheat.co.uk

10. The Exmoor Forest Inn, Simonsbath, Somerset

Exmoor is a wild place, where stout ponies and red deer roam, white-tailed eagles soar above heather-covered moors and otters swim in fast-flowing rivers. The Exmoor Forest Inn is hunkered deep in the National Park. Serious hikers pass through on the Two Moors Way (102 miles from Ivybridge on Dartmoor’s southern edge to Lynmouth on Devon’s north coast), but there are easier routes in every direction too, along mossy bridleways to Iron Age hill forts and up to Pinkery Pond for a chilly lake swim.

The Greenalls, who own the surrounding 6,000-acre estate, reopened this Victorian inn in 2022, and it scored a Michelin Green Star earlier this year. Meat from their organic hill farm forms the backbone of the menu, along with fish from Appledore day boats and seasonal veg from the kitchen garden. The 11 bedrooms are equally wholesome, a mix of William Morris prints and earthy hues, with views on to the moorland. Doubles from £140, including breakfast; exmoorforestinn.com

11. Millbrook Inn, South Pool, Devon

Another farming-family-owned pub, the Millbrook Inn sits at the head of a tidal creek along the Kingsbridge Estuary. At high tide you can arrive by boat, tie up to the pontoon and stroll along the waterside to the pub. In summer, the few outdoor tables are in demand; right now the action shifts inside to the bar beside the fire where, on Sunday afternoons there’s live music — folk, gypsy swing or jazz.

The Owens family acquired the pub in 2021, and their Fowlescombe Farm supplies the meat (and veg) for dishes that might include Manx Loaghtan hogget and black garlic mash, while shellfish comes from local crabbers. Like the menu, the taps change with the seasons — the current guest ale is Shark Island Stout from Totnes — but always include Fowlescombe’s own farmhouse cider, served mulled in winter. After a few of those, it’s lucky the pub’s two lovely cottages, called Land and Sea, are just across the road. Two nights in Sea Cottage (sleeps 4) from £400, including a breakfast hamper; millbrookinnsouthpool.co.uk

12. The Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon, Powys

This red-painted landmark was one of the pioneers of the trend for food-focused inns. And while The Griffin dishes up menus worthy of its Michelin Guide listing, with deep leather chairs, newspaper-stacked tables and keenly priced pints of Wye Valley Butty Bach encouraging lingering, it never loses its pub heart. “If I could take an hour at Table 13 in the corner every day, with a paper, a Guinness and a confit duck leg, I’d be a very happy man,” says co-owner Edmund Inkin, who grew up on a Monmouthshire dairy farm.

The eight smart bedrooms are just as tempting. Last year, ex-Tom Kerridge chef Gwenann Davies joined the fold, returning to her rural Welsh roots. There are challenging walks aplenty in the Brecon Beacons, but Sarah Price of Walk Hay (walkhay.co.uk) also guides groups through the lowland valleys — a better place to be than caught up a mountain when the weather turns. Doubles from £182, including breakfast; felinfachgriffin.co.uk

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