The 12 best pubs in England and Wales

The daily trickle of bad news about pub closures doesn’t seem to apply to the ones in our pub book. That must be because they are run by such determined and imaginative people.

A quick skim through the descriptions below reveals an astonishing array of ideas, sheer hard work, panache and professionalism.

There is a lot of exposed timber, nooks and crannies everywhere, fabulous food, vegetables and chickens growing in pub gardens, dogs dozing, local ales flowing. It is all most encouraging. There is even a pub just taken over by the local organic farmer.

The world is changing around us and pubs that change too will be the survivors. Many victims will be the pubs owned by pub chains, for whom pubs have been ‘property’ rather than ‘boozers’. If the chains loosen their grip, the world will be better for it. So, too, if you drink and eat in these fine places all of which have won a special award in the latest edition of our pubs guide.

Local, seasonal & organic produce award:

The Thomas Lord
West Meon, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU32 1LN. Main courses £12.50-£18; sandwiches from £5

Named after the founder of Lord’s, this unpretentious rural gem groans with cricketing paraphernalia. The darkly beamed and half-panelled walls are decorated with old bats, caps, pads and associated prints, while well-used sofas and the odd leather armchair draw up to a fire in winter.

There’s an endearing miscellany of weathered wooden furniture, big fat candles, drinkers, dogs and a small back room weighed down by books.

It’s a busy, friendly pub loved by a loyal crowd and the daily menus are crammed with local produce including vegetables and herbs from the pub’s own large veg patch; try Grange Farm lamb shoulder with rosemary sauce.

A choice of Hampshire ales direct from the cask follows the local theme, while a smart garden and outdoor wood-fired kitchen beckon on sunnier days. A great, rustic country inn.

Brown Horse Inn
Winster, Windermere, Cumbria, LA23 3NR. Main courses £9.50-£14.95; bar snacks (lunch) from £4.75. Doubles from £80-£90

Your satnav will wobble en route to this old pub in the neck of the Lyth Valley. But it’s worth getting lost trying to find it, now that the talented Edmondsons have taken over the reins.

In the bar of the handsome 18th-century coaching inn are stone floors, open fires, beams and traditional oak chairs; in the dining room, monumental candelabra shed dramatic light on quirky painted furniture and contemporary art.

On your plate are vegetables from the back garden, poultry and eggs from Steve’s smallholding, and meat from Karen’s family farm. (There’s a farm shop, too.) So tuck into homemade black pudding with quails’ egg and mustard sauce as a starter, duck breast with sweet layered potatoes, duck spring roll and plum and damson sauce to follow, and candied lemon cheesecake with honeycomb ice cream to finish (best plan a walk round the lake before you start!).

Four boutique bedrooms have been added to the rest, each with a wall of tinted glass to make the most of the views across the hills - gorgeous. Huge French beds, glamourous textiles, rococo lights and slate bathrooms complete the snazzy picture.

The Royal Oak
Bishopstone, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN6 8PP. Main courses £8-£20; bar snacks £3.95-£6.50

Passionately organic, delightfully unpreachy. In 2005 the simple pub in the idyllic village was taken on by farmer Helen Browning and has been flying the flag ever since.

There’s food bartering with locals, a wild garden with barbecues (they provide the ingredients, you do the rest) and open days with hay bales for kids to romp on: all part of the commitment to be a full-on local.

The planked open-plan bar has a lovely feel with roaring fire and beams, and the staff are friendly but best of all is the menu that changes twice daily: crayfish from the Thames served with Bishopstone watercress, home-cured bacon from home-reared pigs, asparagus from Lotmead down the road, fish from day boats out of Newlyn, gooseberries from the garden.

Perfect ingredients, perfect food, beer from Arkells and six wines by the glass. And amazing Sunday brunch.

Authentic pub award:

The Bell Inn
Aldworth, Reading, Berkshire, RG8 9SE. Bar meals £2.50-£6

The Bell has the style of village pubs long gone and has been in the Macaulay family for 200 years. Plain benches, venerable dark-wood panelling, settles and an outside gents: it’s an unspoilt place that visitors love.

There’s an old wood-burning stove in one room, a more impressive hearth in the public bar, and early evening drinkers cluster around the unique glass hatched bar. Fifty years ago the regulars were agricultural workers; today piped music and mobile phones are fervently opposed.

The food fits the image and they keep it simple: choose from hearty warm rolls filled with thick slices of home-baked ham, ox tongue or good old cheddar, treacle sponge and winter soups of the day.

Drink prices are another draw; the ales come from the local Arkell’s and West Berkshire breweries. There’s also a great big garden.

The Harp
Old Radnor, Presteigne, Powys, LD8 2RH. Main courses £7.95-£15; bar meals £4.25-£6.50

David and Jenny Ellison bring bags of experience (time spent at Bristol’s Hotel du Vin) to this ancient Welsh longhouse tucked up a dead-end lane near the parish church.

The wonderful interior is spick-and-span timeless: 14th-century slate flooring in the bar, tongue-and-groove in a tiny room that seats a dozen diners, crannies crammed with memorabilia, an ancient curved settle, an antique reader’s chair, two fires and a happy crowd.

Enjoy a pint of Shropshire Lass with a Welsh Black rump steak or a tagine of organic lamb with herb couscous, or pan-fried cod with pea and tarragon purée. Or take a ploughman’s to a seat under the sycamore and gaze upon the spectacular Radnor Valley for total tranquillity.

Life in this tiny village, like its glorious pub, remains delightfully unchanged.

The Tobie Norris
12 St Paul’s Street, Stamford, Lincolnshire, PE9 2BE. Main courses £6.75-£12.95

Built in 1280, remodelled in 1663 and again, superbly, in 2006, the Tobie Norris draws you in to a warren of stunningly atmospheric rooms and takes you back to the old days – Cromwellian at least.

Huge stone flags, oak settles and the smell of woodsmoke assail you as you leave the bustling pavements behind, the weekly market in full flow. Between the main rooms is a staircase leading to three more, each one oozing character and style, with vast exposed timbers, little recesses and cupboard-like doors.

Find a church pew or a nice leather armchair and sit back with your Ufford Ales and Adnams – or a tasty wine from a list of 21, each available by the glass. Dogs doze on bare boards, perfect staff ferry pizzas and plates of smoked salmon linguine, there are rotating ales on tap and you could stay here all day.

The Crown
Park Street, Stoke-by-Nayland, Colchester, Suffolk, CO6 4SE. Main courses £10.95-£17.95. Doubles from £70-£170

A slick operation - and now you can stay! In a smart new-build behind the pub, find rather posh bedrooms with elegant wallpapers, brass beds with superb mattresses and uncluttered bathrooms with storm showers and fluffy towels. All are toasty warm with underfloor heating, thick new carpets (three have French doors leading to a terrace) and country views.

Back in the pub, low-ceilinged but rambling rooms are decked in muted colours, and the mood is warm, appealing and refreshingly music-free. There’s space to prop up the bar and down a pint from Suffolk brewers Adnams, while the seasonal menu is a sympathetic combination of traditional and contemporary.

No fewer than 11 chefs dispatch exuberant renditions of wild Norfolk mussels with bacon and parsley on toast, and locally shot pheasant with bacon, prunes and leeks - topped off with steamed sticky quince and ginger pudding or a plate of five British cheeses.

The wine list is outstanding, with wines matched to the food and bottles to take home from the shop. Spill onto the terrace on sunny days: the views are as fabulous as all the rest.

Farmer’s Inn
West Hatch, Taunton, Somerset, TA3 5RS. Main courses £10.75-£16; bar meals £5.50-£10.75. Doubles from £125-£150

You don’t often trek into deepest Somerset and wash up at a deeply groovy inn, but that’s what you get at the Farmer’s, so brave the narrow country lanes and head to the top of the hill. All the country treats are on hand.

Outside, cows in the fields, cockerels crowing and long clean views; inside, friendly people, open fires and a timber-framed bar. It’s all the result of a total renovation, and one airy room now rolls into another giving a sense of colour and comfort, space and light. Imagine terracotta-tiled floors and beamed ceilings, yellow tongue-and-groove panelling, old pine dining tables dressed with pots of rosemary and logs piled high in the alcoves.

Stay the night in off-beat but elegant and big rooms with distinctive beds (all antique) and expansive, gleaming wooden floors. There are power showers and claw-foot baths, one room has a daybed, others have sofas, another a courtyard. Super food flies from the kitchen - grilled sardines, rib-eye steak, chocolate and mint mousse - and you can eat on the terrace in summer. The pub is also on a new circular bridle path funded by English Heritage.

Turtley Corn Mill
Avonwick, South Brent, Devon, TQ10 9ES. Main courses £9.75-£16.95. Doubles from £89-£110

The mill, revamped in 2005, has six acres sloping down to the lake - space for a multitude of picnic tables: order your hampers in advance. Ducks too... and boules, croquet, jenga and a ginormous chess set.

Inside has been transformed to create a series of spacious inter-connected areas: the bar with its dark slate floors and doors to the garden; the wooden-floored ‘library’ lined with books; the mill room (turning wheel right outside) with wood-burner, prints on pristine white walls, oriental rugs and newspapers to read.

The food is traditional and homemade, be it local game terrine, braised beef in red wine or sea bass with minted pea sauce. A paper menu is printed off every day, there’s Princetown Jail Ale on tap and a raft of wines by the glass.

Swish new bedrooms are ultra-cosy - light chunky modern furnishings, restful colours, and excellent beds dressed in crispy cotton and goose down. Modernity reigns: sensor lamps, iPod clock radios, spacious showers.

The South Hams is close as are the Dartmoor tors; it’s also the perfect stopover off the A38.

The George
Alstonefield, Ashbourne, Staffordshire, DE6 2FX. Main courses £9-£17; bar meals £4-£9

Greensward ripples endlessly in this remote limestone village with its old church, perched on a plateau between the remarkable gorges of the rivers Dove and Manifold. Set amidst this verdant Eden, the handsome George is an ultra-reliable local, in the family for four decades and lovingly managed by Emily.

As you walk into the small, timeless rooms of old beams, gleaming quarry tiles and crackling log fire, you know you’re in safe hands. It’s an unhurried place, where everyone knows everyone else (or soon will), ramblers cram the benches and tables out front, and time passes slowly.

The welcome is warm, the beer’s on song and the food is fab. Young chefs are creative with seasonal produce, so there’s potted smoked mackerel, rack of lamb with herb and mustard crust, and pear tarte tatin. Perfect.

Gaggle of Geese
Buckland Newton, Dorchester, Dorset, DT2 7BS. Main courses £8-£14

Having transformed the European Inn into a Piddle Valley favourite, Mark and Emily took on the forlorn Gaggle in the next valley - and worked their magic.

Squashy sofas by the fire, bookcases and big flowers, church candles on old pine tables and a lick of Farrow & Ball did the trick in the bar; red walls and rugs soften the rambling dining room.

Come for pints of Butcombe and modern pub food - goose leg hash, organic rump steak with pepper sauce, jam roly-poly. Meat comes from Mark’s family farm at Cattistock, and allotment vegetables and game are delivered by locals - in return for a pint or two.

Skittle evenings, lunch clubs, the village fete, Remembrance dinners, charity goose auctions, takeaway fish and chips... it’s the village’s adopted hub. Plans for five acres include a kitchen garden, rare-breed livestock and bedrooms.

The Black Swan
Ravenstonedale, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria, CA17 4NG. Main courses £8.95-£15.95. Doubles from £75-£110

Duck under hanging baskets to find a good mix of people in the busy main bar, cosy with red plush stools, exposed stone and soft lighting. Or nip through to the public bar with TV, games of Scrabble and newspapers to read. A small lounge is quieter, with comfy seating at bay windows and an open fire.

Wherever you land you are looked after by energetic, efficient staff; choose from a simple sandwich to a three-course blow out (try the pie of the day topped with puff pastry). Meat comes from known local farms, the eggs are home-laid, the vegetables are fresh from Kirkby Stephen; visit the thriving village shop and take home some local produce.

Bedrooms are comfortable, unfussy, some with views; some are in an annexe, one is next to the bar (not always quiet). All have fine cotton sheets, fresh flowers, large towels, organic soaps from Sedbergh; some have their own sitting rooms with sofabeds for extra folk. A DVD library is available for very lazy lumps but you are deep in the Eden valley and it would be a crime not to explore it!

Sawday's guides

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