Blanchland, North Pennines · Inn
A twelfth-century abbot's lodge turned country inn in a honey-stoned moorland village, with a vaulted crypt bar and serious cooking.
Blanchland is one of the strangest and most complete villages in the north of England, built from the stone of a dissolved Premonstratensian abbey and arranged around a gatehouse arch on the edge of the Derwent moors. The Lord Crewe Arms occupies the abbot's lodge and guest house at the centre of it, parts of which date to the twelfth century, and it has been an inn since the eighteenth.
Rooms are split between the main building and the converted miners' cottages and Angel House across the square. The historic rooms have the deepest character — thick walls, mullioned windows, the odd priest's hole story — while the cottage rooms are lighter and better suited to anyone who wants a bath and a decent radiator more than a ghost. All are decorated in a restrained country style with proper linen, and the layout means the quietest rooms are those furthest from the bar.
The Crypt Bar sits in the vaulted undercroft, with a fire lit for most of the year, and the Bishop's Dining Room serves modern British cooking built around Northumbrian game, hill lamb and produce from the surrounding estate. Food is a genuine draw rather than an afterthought, and the bar fills with walkers and locals in equal measure. There is no spa, no pool and no lift.
It suits couples wanting a weekend away from everything, walkers on the moors and the Derwent valley, and anyone using it as an unusual base for Hadrian's Wall, which is about 40 minutes north. Families are welcome but the building is not built for pushchairs. Blanchland has no shop and almost no phone signal, which is either the point or a problem depending on your temperament. Rates typically start around £185 for bed and breakfast for two.