Dower House, Peak District

The hotel: on the face of it, £95 for a B&B feels steep, even in these inflationary times - bed, breakfast and not even an ensuite bathroom. “It’s just along the corridor,” John Biggin explains when I phone to book. “But it’s private, reserved for your room alone. And we can lend you dressing gowns if you’d like.”

Hmmm. Then we arrive at the Dower House, and everything’s smashing. The house commands the high street in the dapper Derbyshire village of Winster: a big Georgian job in silver stone, with a walled garden and more windows than it knows what to do with. It’s a B&B with a Good Hotel Guide listing, and you can instantly see why.

Indoors, the elegant “dining hall” is full of fresh flowers and shafting sunlight, and the guest sitting room has squidgy sofas, family photos and no telly. There’s an honesty bar under the stairs, and if you want the ironing board, “just help yourself - you’ll find it in the priest-hole”. John and his wife, Marsha (she’s the one hugging pigs on the mantelpiece), moved to the Peak District “in search of hills”, and they tend to stay discreetly in the background.

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The Dower House is meant to feel like home from home, and it succeeds.

The rooms: just three are for guests, each with a private bathroom, if not always next door. They’ve been redecorated this year, and come thick with antique prints and hefty haberdashery, all embroidered in warm William Morris reds, greens and mustards. Ours has a duck-your-head door, a come-to-bed four-poster and a tiny sink in the corner, so you don’t have to streak along the landing to brush your teeth.

The trimmings are right: lots of soft lamplight, fresh milk for the tea tray and those dressing gowns on demand. It’s the lord-of-the-manor view that you’ll remember, though - arrowing out along Main Street to the mullioned Market House, built for cattle trading in days when Winster was a good deal more important. It is now a charming museumette that charts the village’s surprisingly rambunctious history.

The food: Marsha’s breakfasts are daintily cooked and proudly provenanced - dry-cured bacon from Critchlows Farm, oatcakes from the Bakewell Pudding Shop and Chatsworth Estate preserves. The juice is freshly squeezed, the teapot of ample girth. Come evening, consult the fat file of restaurant tips in your room. John favours the Druid, at nearby Birchover, which serves fancy British cuisine in feisty portions: its smoked-fish pie was the most satisfyingly cheesy thing I’ve eaten this year.

And outside? Winster makes a powerful case for being Britain’s prettiest mining village, with a cobbled coach yard, a cute-as-kittens post office and a community-owned shop advertising the village raffle (first prize: tea towel and dusters).

Strike out to explore the White Peak. The bright white gorges of the Dove and Manifold are drenched in deciduous colour, reflecting back from twinkly trout streams. Bakewell is a 10-minute drive away; you can tour the salons of Chatsworth or Haddon Hall; and John and Marsha can furnish you with ready-made rambles “between three miles and 23”.

Vincent Crump

The Dower House (01629 650931, www.thedowerhousewinster.com ) has doubles for £95, B&B

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