The Bell at Ramsbury

The succour of this Georgian coaching inn, set at the edge of the Marlborough Downs, is not to be missed. The café, chic in shades of cream and sandstone, serves breakfast (organic sausages, free-range eggs, home-roasted coffee), lunch (toasties, home-cooked ham, egg and chips) and heavenly baking in the afternoon. Seasonal food in the tartan-upholstered restaurant will satisfy more substantial appetites: perhaps pea, lovage and courgette soup to start, mushrooms on toast to follow (don’t underestimate these truffle-soaked lovelies) or pork loin with black kale and roast potatoes. Dessert might be a rhubarb and pear crumble with lavender ice cream.

Head chef Jonas notably uses ingredients from Ramsbury Estate, which is nearly all things to all men, with a brewery, distillery, oil press and smokehouse. Trout is cured in beetroot and the estate’s vodka, partridge is smoked over beech. Much of the produce is grown in the kitchen garden at Priory Farm and tastes fantastic.