This is a great hotel, run by two people who really care about the comfort of their guests. Set in rolling English downland, it is a quintessential "country house" hotel with beautiful furnishings reflecting good living, but not at all vulgar or chintzy. The owners want to retain the country house feel and style yet offer the most modern standards - hence a refurbishment programme focusing on installation of ultra modern bathrooms is underway but this did not detract from our pleasure at all.

The personalities of the owners come across and they strike just the right balance between friendliness and leaving guests free to relax and unwind. Jackie is front of house and has a wonderful sense of humour, while Steve does the cooking to an exceptionally high standard. Although the restaurant was not fully operational during our stay, Steve still produced a great dinner for us at a reasonable cost. He also triumphed at breakfast with gorgeous home made bread and out-of-the-oven cranberry muffins.

It was a sign of the excellent customer service that Jackie rang me on my mobile to let us know they would not be at home when we returned and to see if there was anything we needed.

This hotel is good now and we both agreed it was the best hotel of its type we had stayed in in the UK. With the renovations complete and restaurant up and running it will be exceedingly hard to beat. Thank goodness good old fashioned customer care can still be found in the hotel trade! Do go- you won't be disappointed.