Hipping Hall Hotel

Hipping Hall, Cowan Bridge, Kirkby Lonsdale

There are few better ways to start the day than taking breakfast in Hipping’s impressive 15th-century banquet hall, complete with tapestries, a minstrels’ gallery and gargantuan fireplace. While it has all the comforts and essentials of a modern-day country house, Hipping is steeped in history. The hall part was actually once a lacksmith’s, but when it was bought by a local in the early 17th-century, the country manor house was built as it stands today, although it has been considerably restored in recent times. All nine bedrooms are about plush, understated luxury with plenty of nice little touches (Ren toiletries, stone-tiled bathrooms). On the dining front, it’s more than a bit special. Featuring in the UK’s Top 100 Restaurants (behind Le Gavroche at 62), they have an excellent dinner option, but the pièce de résistance is a seven-course tasting menu featuring such delights as pork belly and crayfish croquette; sea bass, Morteau sausage and scallop velouté; and honeycomb parfait, milk chocolate and passion fruit. Doubles from £120.