The Bell Inn, Watchet, Somerset

The real reason for going to this place is, of course, the legend that Samuel Taylor Coleridge stayed there and began to write 'The Ancient Mariner'. Having said that, Watchet is so titchy and all the eating establishments close relatively early, there is a limited choice. This place boasts of being a 16th century coaching inn - so access is impossible. The place is set slightly below ground level with narrow corridors and doorways. You will need a Drew to help with steering and shift some furniture to clear a path for you.

The layout is bog-standard pub with uneven chairs and scratched, wobbly tables. The food is quite standard pub fare too, but cheap and filling. I had the ham, egg and chips. A tasty, dark ham with two well-cooked fried eggs, golden and thick yolks. Drew had the chilli con carne which arrived on a long plate laid out in thirds with chilli, rice and Doritos. The chilli was thick, plenty of meat very, very hot and spicy. I sampled Exmoor Fox ale - lovely, almost chewable malt texture, the tiniest hint of citrus fizz on the tongue, smooth roll down a thirsty throat.

I liked this place simply because I like Watchet. Tell you what, though. I am never going to a wedding there.

White Horse Inn, Washford, Somerset

This is the kind of place that should exist in Stratford, or even just around it. Somewhere rural, not touristy but not ignoring the fact that tourists exist; and local. You know what I mean: local. You sit in the dining area with your wine and sea bass and you can hear them at the bar sitting in vests and jogging bottoms, with a laugh that sounds like 'RAhahaha RAhahahar!'.

This place is textbook rural, but not because it has been set up that way. It really is that rural - low, squatting building, frontage obscured by all sorts of climbing plants, low ceilings, uneven steps, beams. The interior smelt beery, and was slightly dark and festooned with agricultural paraphernalia, in this case related to sheep, so shears, combs and funny looking hinged things with chains*. Carpets were red and gold, seating banquette style, or what appeared to be someone's kitchen chairs. Access was, of course, limited, if not impossible. There is a garden across the lane which has plenty of access, but food and drinks are not brought to the outside tables.

The food was superb. The menu was gastropub quality. We had the sea bass fishcakes with lime and ginger. Crunchy coating with a smooth texture and tangy aftertaste, subtle aroma of fish, small kick of lime in the back of the throat. Chips were fairly chunky, golden brown, piping hot, not especially crunchy but a generous portion. Large salad consisting of leaves, cubes of red and yellow peppers, about three quarters of a tomato and two or three red onion rings. All of which was heavily drizzled with a pungent French dressing. Drew had the scampi on our second visit which had the chips and salad and an eye-popping sixteen nuggets of scampi. Let's be honest - you don't get that around here.

Something else that does not happen around here - two generous meals, large glass of wine and water was a mere £21.

 

* I don't know. I'm not a farmer.

Cotswold Lavender Tearoom, Broadway

This is a small but elegant little place set in acres of lavender fields. The café is fresh feeling, all scrubbed pine, large bright windows, pink cheeked young staff. The menu is a small one, but really perfectly formed. It is the kind of place that you would expect to sell home made stuff and it does. Lavender scones? Check. Teacakes with butter and optional jam? Check. Victoria sponge? Check. Selection of fruit and herbal teas? Check and check.

Access is OK - the car park and driveway are very gravelly, so expect a bumpy journey but as the shop and tearooms are in a converted barn there is enough room. There are also seats outside if the weather is conducive.

Sadly, though, the place is in danger of being wrecked. I don't mean physically. We have been visiting here fairly regularly, and it is has been busy but never overrun. Now it looks as though the coach firms have discovered it. On our last visit, the place was a sea of tourists. I suppose that makes me a snob, wanting to keep this particular discovery to myself; but the whole ambience of the place is ruined by Cotswolds tourism doing what it does best. That is, taking a small, attractive environment and unloading hordes people into it so that the charm of the place is stomped beneath pounding feet. Yes, the lavender farm is beautiful - the views are stunning, the smell intoxicating. It has an odd, very faint buttery vanilla scent, not at all what you would expect. But all you could see were people's hot, shiny faces and all you could smell was traffic fumes. The tearoom itself was swamped. Four cyclists were stretched out on chairs, regaling each other with their effing adventures, what an effing brilliant time they were having raising all this effing money. People clogged the queue wanting to know if there were any 'dinners', there were no seats inside or out - and it was just bloody awful.

Still, we Shakespeareans are hardy souls, able to weather the direst adversity. If you visit here and find coaches and crowds, I recommend foregoing the whimsy that is usually one's default position in times of crisis. Instead, adopt a stern demeanour and if anyone squeezes past you in a plastic cagoule and oversized, over-laced trainers, smack 'em one.

Snowshill Manor Restaurant, Snowshill

Wow! This place is great! Situated to the right of the ticket office and shop it is a stand alone house with a large terrace overlooking some quite magnificent views. And sheep.

Access was a little tricky as there were quite a few steps to negotiate. There is a path that you can use but it might be better to use the buggy services on offer. This is excellent. I mean, I was almost tempted to forget the house altogether in favour of being ferried about on a golf buggy free of charge.

The restaurant does not open until 11am and we were there quite early so they didn't seem to be quite ready. The only hot food was soup but they clearly offer more as the specials board was advertising the ubiquitous National Trust quiche-with-everything lunches. Or rather - and this is a new trend I have noticed - offering 'flan'. Drew had the soup and I had an egg mayo sandwich. The soup was a thick concoction, plenty of vegetables and served with a generous portion of granary bread. My sandwich was not bad, filling very creamy, fairly thick slice of bread. We shared a slice of gluten-free banana bread, a generous portion, iced with slices of banana on top. The cake was lovely - very dense in texture, not many crumbs, the sign of a good moist cake. My latte was mild, served in a cup and saucer although not so much foamy as frothed with bubbles. The surface looked as though someone had blown in the coffee through a straw.

Sit on the terrace if you can. Specifically, on the table to your right at the very end of the terrace. There you get the best view. This is a good place to take visitors - if you are members of the NT then it won't cost anything. Views like these are designed to be bragged about. Especially if you are entertaining visitors for whom the Cotswolds is new. Stand at the edge, point vaguely in the direction of a road in the distance and say 'There's a place over there called Loose Chippings. We should drive through it on the way back'.





Access: without buggy ***** with buggy *****
Latte: *****

Milton's Head, Chalfont St Giles

I admit to a little bit of disappointment. I had secretly hoped that a place called the 'Milton's Head', just up the road from the A-lister poet Milton's Cottage would be a little more -- well, historical. Dark scratched tables, rough-hewn benches, pewter tankards on hooks, maybe a shady arborous roof, glozing tempters tuning their proems, angels eating copious quantities and then wafting it out in a sort of non-corporeal, radiant, transubstantial way.

Instead what you get is a rather smart and chic Italian restaurant, a Greene King franchise. Which, while pleasant enough, is generic. I had an egg mayo sandwich, encouraged by the fact that it is served with chips and a salad. The sandwich was good, two slices of white bread cut into four triangles with a chunky, rough-chopped filling. The salad was heavily dressed with rocket leaves, a cherry tomato and some shreds of carrot and pepper. The chips were a disappointment. Fairly thin-cut, generic looking with no real fluffiness and only a serving of seven. Still, I plucked, I ate. Drew had a jacket potato with a bacon, mushroom and onion filling which looked much the better option. Glistening shards of bacon and plump looking pieces of mushroom, all draped with chargrilled shreds of onion. The latte was a disappointment - served in a cup and saucer but no foam to speak of, and the milk formed a skin on the surface quite quickly.

Access is problematic - there are a couple of steps to the entrance. I left Drew, still paying, and managed the dark descent; but there appeared to be no alternative entrance for wheelchair users. Beware, too - there is no car park and you are not allowed to park on the forecourt of the building either. The nearest car park is up the steep slope for Milton's Cottage, so, if possible, get someone to drop you off first.


Access: *****
Latte: *****

Orangery Restaurant, Charlecote Park, nr Wellesbourne

On a hot day, be warned. This establishment is, indeed, set in the Orangery with a lovely glass roof but gets greenhouse hot. Though there is plenty of seating indoors, it is best to try for the outdoors. There is a mix of ubiquitous National Trust wooden bench-and-tables, but also a few of the ironwork style chairs and tables dotted about. Uncomfortable though. Stick with the benches, even if it is an awful faff dragging your legs over the seat in the least ladylike way possible.

Access is fine although a long queue means that you can get quite boxed in. You tend to find that you are blocking the path of people to-ing and fro-ing and this can get frustrating. You are quite frequently bumped into, although, in fairness, people are very nice and very apologetic. If possible, just leave someone in the queue to get the food and aim for a table against a wall or outdoors, to avoid collisions.

We opted for jacket potatoes, Drew having chilli and I had tuna mayo. Both were served in a deep bowl with a small, undressed salad of lettuces leaves, a quarter slice of tomato and two slivers of red pepper. The tuna mayo was tasty. Very smooth, very, very creamy and blended well with the potato which didn't have a very crispy skin but was flaky and earthy in taste. Drew found the chilli to be very hot with a nice 'kick'. Neither potato, incidentally, had butter. This is a worrying trend we have noticed - no jacket potato served to us these days has butter. Presumably you are meant to get some from the same place that supplies knives, forks, sugar and sauces but we have found that this isn't always the case. Is this a money-saving ruse on the part of all eateries? Or nanny-state style intervention for the sake of our health? The rocky road cake we had to follow was good. Cloying and extra sweet. It was too hot for coffee so we opted for that National Trust favourite, the Fentimans brand Dandelion and Burdock and Victorian lemonade. The latter was is good on a hot day but so lemony as to suck your features inward, particularly if you try to down it quickly. Sipping it is best, if you don't want to spend the next five minutes gurning and going 'Yiiick'. The Dandelion and Burdock has a fragrant, herby flavour, much milder and more thirst-quenching. And it makes you come over all olde worlde.

The house and grounds are well worth exploring, by the way. I am not entirely sure that Shakespeare poached deer from the estate, or even whether he gave those animals any thought. For my part, on coming across those stick legs, goggle eyes and slack jaws, I wouldn't blame him for wanting to give them a slap.*



Access: *****




*No, of course, I wouldn't ACTUALLY do it. And anyway, William would have done what we would, in the event he fancied a bit of venison. He'd have gone to the shop.

McDonalds, Stadium MK, Milton Keynes

Yes, oh faithful bloggee, Travels With My Oxygen got its geek on and hotfooted it down to Milton Keynes for the occasion that is Collectormania.

There were plenty of snack bars within the shabby, rather dank stadium but even this iron constitution has its limits. Fond though we are around here of our Warwickshire truckle cheeses and artisan breads, not one of our little group is averse to the chips-with-everything mentality; but, really, there are limits. Flaccid looking bacon butties and grey coffee were not at all tempting. Also offputting was the presence in these places of a number of pale young men who, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett, should really be getting out in the fresh air more often - maybe meeting some young ladies.

Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of a small McDonalds. It was crowded, with a huge long queue. But the staff are clearly used to dealing with these numbers, so everything moved rather rapidly. Given the size of the venue there is very little seating indoors or out. There are, however, solid concrete cubes dotted around the perimeter of the stadium that provide a form of seating. The subsequent loss of feeling from the waist down is a minor inconvenience, and the leg tremor disappears after a while. I had the chicken McNuggets and fries and it was exactly what I expected. Hot, salty, hunger-quenching. It does the job too, providing just enough energy for the second round of merchandise-hunting. Which I didn't do, as I was too tired. Went to the M & S outside Gate 1 instead, and had a sandwich.