Orange

Once a brewery, this handsomely restored four-storey Georgian inn is dominated by a ground-floor bar with a lively, chatty and easy-going atmosphere. There are high ceilings, wooden dining chairs around pale tables on bare boards, an open fire at one end and a big carved counter where friendly staff keep Hammerton N1 and Sharps Doom Bar on handpump, over 30 wines by the glass, 17 malt whiskies, a cocktail list and home-made syrups. The dining room to the right, usually packed with cheerful customers, serves excellent breakfasts and is decorated with prints, glass bottles and soda siphons, big house plants and a few rustic knick-knacks. Upstairs, the linked restaurant rooms are similarly furnished, with old French travel posters and circus prints on cream walls, more open fireplaces, big glass ceiling lights, chandeliers and quiet background music. There are four comfortable, well equipped bedrooms, some pavement tables and disabled access to the bar but not to the loos.