The Plume of Feathers

This is a popular bar-restaurant so enjoy being thrown together with diners, children, walkers and their hounds – especially in the summer. The central bar is lively with ales on tap and friendly staff zipping in and out of the kitchen.

Welshman Andrew Dudley heads up the kitchen which showcases modern dishes using local-as-can-be produce; try Cornish fish and homemade pies, lunchtime sandwiches and delicious puddings – just the sort of gastro-grub you want after a breezy walk around nearby Ladock Woods. You eat at candle-studded pine tables in front of the wood-burner or in the huge, airy conservatory.

You’re halfway between Newquay and Truro with wild surfing beaches to the north and gentle bucket-and-spade ones to the south plus heaps of Cornish highlights – Eden Project, Lanhydrock House and Gardens, Tehidy Woods – within a 30-minute drive. Head back for a deep sleep in boutique bedrooms dotted around the grounds in the converted barns, stables and hen houses.