4Weekend
manor Castle Ward; watching yachties
and geese on Strangford Lough; browsing
through a good food scene (try Artisan
Cookhouse) after bike rides. Where this
scores as a lazy weekender, though, is
pretty Georgian Portaferry on the oppo-
site shore. It’s an hour away by car. On foot
it’s ten minutes, taking a ferry through
sluicing currents for the price of a pint. See
it as a mini cruise.
Stay Slieve Donard Resort and Spa,
B&B doubles from £
(hastingshotels.com)Corfe Castle
Dorset
The houses of creamy Purbeck
stone. The ruined castle on a
hill. The steam trains huffing
into a bygone station. If Corfe
Castle feels familiar it’s because
this bit of England inspired Enid
Blyton to create the Famous Five.
Morris dancers were on the square
the last time I visited, for goodness
sake. You could conceivably gawp out-
side the Greyhound with a pint of Boon-
doggle. Alternatively, after lunch at the
Pink Goat (thepinkgoat.co.uk), explore.
The Jurassic Coast is five miles away.
Those trains run direct to Swanage beach.
Stay The Pig on the Beach,
room-only doubles from £
(thepighotel.com)Blakeney Norfolk
Burnham Market is Norfolk’s crowd-
puller. Give me Blakeney any day. Still
salty, the former port is a lovely tangle of
flinty houses, with children crabbing off
the quay, old boys with accents you can
chew on in the Kings Arms, and Morston
Marsh stretching to infinity. Bring wellies
or walking boots to head out beneath vast
skies, deep-breathing briny air (the path to
Stiffkey is a belter), or join Beans Boats
to see Britain’s largest seal colony. Now
lunch: the Moorings (blakeney-moorings.
co.uk) prepares Blakeney’s best seafood.
Stay Blakeney Hotel, half-board doubles
from £308 (blakeney-hotel.co.uk)Orford Suffolk
Only a nuggety keep serves as a reminder
that Orford was the Plymouth of the
Middle Ages. Today, beyond a sweet
square where Pump St Bakery (pump
streetbakery.com) sells sourdough sand-
wiches, broad lanes have little louder than
cooing woodpigeons on rose-tousled red-
brick cottages. Amen to that. Sailors still
mess about in boats, though. They’re by
the quay on the River Ore, where a ferry
shuttles to the National Trust’s Orford
Ness Nature Reserve, a ten-mile shingle
spit of haunting beauty and rare wildlife.
Stay The Crown & Castle, B&B doubles
from £135 (crownandcastle.co.uk)Lavenham Suffolk
You’ll come for antique shops and vintage
outlets in a former stomping ground of
Lovejoy. You’ll linger for the best-
preserved Tudor village in England, its
wonky half-timbering and candy-
coloured plaster a legacy of prosperity as
a wool town. Must-sees are Shilling Street,
High Street and the splendid Market
Place, home to the National Trust’s Guild-
hall. Perhaps also De Vere House on Water
Street, aka Harry Potter’s birthplace in
The Deathly Hallows: Part 1. The Laven-
ham Greyhound is my pick for posh pub
food (greyhoundlavenham.co.uk).
Stay The Swan at Lavenham,
B&B doubles from £
(theswanatlavenham.co.uk)In search of cosy hotels, long walks
and historic markets? James Stewart
knows all the best places to visit
Grantchester
Cambridgeshire
“Is there honey still for tea?” the poet
Rupert Brooke asked in The Old Vicarage,
Grantchester. There is, plus light lunches
at the Orchard Tea Garden (theorchard
teagarden.co.uk). First, though, discover
a dreamlike village where you’re not an
idle tourist so much as an aesthete
pilgrim: ambling beside Byron’s Pool (tame
bear optional), idling like EM Forster,
Virginia Woolf or Pink Floyd’s David Gil-
mour on willow-silvered meadows, letting
time drift outside the Red Lion. Leave the
car. The walk from Cambridge alongside
the River Cam is only two miles. Better
still, punt.
Stay University Arms, B&B doubles from
£191 (universityarms.com)Chilham Kent
It has a medieval keep and a palatial Jaco-
bean manor in gardens designed by
Capability Brown. Yet a visit to Chilham
Castle isn’t the sole reason to head nine
miles south of Canterbury. You’re not even
here for the North Downs Way as it
threads into the Kent Downs. What really
wows is the village: the Tudor half-timbers
and choice dining spot the White Horse
pub on the main square appear the
very distillation of Englishness. How
English? Well, the BBC filmed its 2009
adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma here.
Quite English, then.
Stay The Woolpack Inn,
room-only doubles from £
(woolpackinnchilham.co.uk)The Slaughters
Gloucestershire
Because the Cotswolds’ Castle Coombe
is oh-my pretty and oh-lord popular,
you’re going to the Slaughters. It’s a
Bogof deal — Upper and Lower Slaughter
for the price of one delightful mile
alongside the River Eye. Unlike many
Cotswold villages they remain, just, the
Cotswolds of old: no coach parks, no bijou-
teries, just knotted lanes, stone the colour
of burnt honey, blowsy gardens andfootbridges spanning the Eye. Lower has
the postcard looks plus good food in the
Slaughters Country Inn (theslaughters
inn.co.uk).
Stay The Slaughters Manor House,
B&B doubles from £
(slaughtersmanor.co.uk)Downham Lancashire
Arrival is always a surprise. One minute
you’re zipping between stone walls,
admiring the high fells, the next you’re
passing a handsome church and
16th-century Downham Hall, then
tidy terraces of cottages. That’s
when you notice something else:
there are also no street signs or
TV aerials or satellite dishes, all
banned by the barony that
owns the village. For visitors it’s
like time travel to the early
1800s. What I most like about
Downham, though, is its position,
awed by Pendle Hill glowering
above. Hike up it before lunch at the
Assheton Arms.
Stay The Assheton Arms, B&B doubles
from £129 (theasshetonarms.com)Strangford Co Down
In theory you’ll see Strangford in minutes:
candy-coloured houses, grounded boats
lying at drunken angles. In practice time
unspools here. Days pass pottering around
its 16th-century castle and National Trustit as a mini
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Lough, Co Down30 prettiest villages in the