A Mid Ulster guest house and restaurant is celebrating this week after being named as the AA Guest Accommodation of the Year for Northern Ireland 2016-2017.

Ardtara Country House in Upperlands near Maghera was unveiled as the country’s top accommodation at ceremony in London earlier this week.

The stunning mansion which was built in the 19th Century as a family home by Harry Jackson Clark during the reign of Queen Victoria, was also named as the ‘Most Romantic Hotel’ in… (View original article)

When you think about wandering through the halls of a historic country home, you might picture yourself tip-toeing past some wonderfully ornate and expensive-looking furnishings, terrified of touching or even looking at anything for too long in case they’re worth more than a year’s salary.

That is the exact impression owners Chris Badham and Damian Llambias are determined to quash with the gloriously gothic Huntsham Court in Devon.

Built in 1863, the house was originally a … (View original article)

It was quite a thrill to be driven on an overcast November day down the winding road to Arley Hall in a section of Cheshire genial producer Simon Maloney describes as “the footballer belt … all Barbour jackets, wellies and spaniels”.

The car park is full of trailers and catering trucks. From here, we crunch up the gravel drive to the symmetrical Grade II listed pile. With Maloney and creator Steven Knight as my tour guides, I was escorted through the grand, wood-panelled house, … (View original article)

John Buchan, author of The Thirty-Nine Steps, did not see active service in the first world war, spending it instead as a correspondent, an intelligence officer and, finally, as director of information under Lord Beaverbrook. Nevertheless, its “alien immensities” left him painfully adrift, a disorientation for which, demobbed, he sought a cure in the British countryside. Wandering its lanes helped him to reclaim the past, and thus to have hope in the future.

It is as if Tinniswood is… (View original article)