Queen Victoria must have been amused to visit this stonking neo-Jacobean country house, built for railway engineer Henry Robertson, on the edge of the Berwyn mountains and Snowdonia National Park, for she elected to extend her stay. It is now a luxury hotel in wooded grounds ‘full of rabbits’. Accommodation ranges from classic bedrooms with, say, good antiques and Zoffany décor, and turret suites with sitting room, to the panelled, four-poster Churchill Suite (how he’d enjoy today’s Palé Cigar Experience, puffing away on the terrace). Two duplex garden suites in the coach house have a super-king bed, roll-top bath, walk-in shower, outdoor seating. You can eat fairly simply in the bistro, but the main attractions is Sam Griffiths’s tasting menu of dishes such as langoustine, curried carrot, lime pickle, wild rice; hogget loin, belly bacon, charred onion, baby leek, beer pickled silver skin onion. He holds a Michelin green star and ‘the cooking and ingredients are certainly star quality’, while ‘the wine list is world class – depth, rarities, reasonable mark-ups’. Cream teas are a treat, and the slap-up breakfast does not disappoint. (ID)