Pale Hall

Original features and antiques characterise this neo-Jacobean Victorian pile in 'attractive grounds, more wild than ornamental' on the edge of Snowdonia national park. You can sleep in the half-tester bed used by Queen Victoria and bathe in the same bath. Churchill Suite has a vaulted ceiling with stained-glass roof lights, a four-poster, a bathroom with copper and zinc bath behind a secret door. Two duplex suites in the coach house open on to a courtyard garden. A tasting menu offering 'outstanding cooking for the price' is available in the fine-dining restaurant. ‘A welcome change is a choice at the main course and principal dessert stage,’ a reader noted, though adding that the dinner pacing was a bit off. 'Wine is taken very seriously here.' Simpler fare is served in the bar bistro (pasta, steak, cod and chips). ‘Breakfast was first rate – golden scrambled eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice, cloudy apple juice.’ Way ahead of its time, the Hall installed Wales’s first hydro-electric plant in 1920; it still keeps the lights on today, while water is supplied by a bore hole in the grounds. (Ingle Dawson)