One kitchen in the basement of the middle house feeds all of it. The menus are short because the kitchen is small, and the kitchen is small because it was a scullery.
The Long Room
Breakfast 7.00 to 10.30 daily · Dinner 18.30 to 21.30, Tuesday to Saturday
The dining room runs the full width of the back of the middle house and looks into the walled garden through five sash windows. There are twelve bare wooden tables and a floor that announces the arrival of every plate.
Dinner is four or five main courses, which change when the kitchen decides they should. The meat is from the West Country, the fish comes up from Brixham twice a week, and the vegetables come from a grower outside Corsham who refuses to be rushed. Breakfast is cooked to order and served late enough to be civilised.
Non-residents are welcome at dinner. Please telephone instead of writing, as the book lives on the desk.
The Morning Room
11.00 to 23.30 daily · Food until 21.00
At the front of the south house, lined with the bookcases the last private owner left behind and holding the best two armchairs in the building. It was the morning room of the original house and the name stuck, which is awkward, because it is mostly a bar.
There’s sherry, a short wine list, cider from the Mendips and a bar menu of about six things carried through from the kitchen. People read in here, and some of them have been on the same newspaper since Tuesday.
The books are there to be read and may be taken upstairs, on the understanding that they come back down.
The Garden Table
12.00 to 17.00, April to September, weather permitting
A long table under the wall at the back of the garden, laid for lunch when the sun is out and the brickwork has warmed up. Lunch is salads, a cold cut and bread from the kitchen, with the same short wine list carried out by hand.
It seats fourteen and isn’t reserved. Residents have the garden until three, and after that it’s open to anyone eating.
Trays at night
The kitchen closes at half past nine, but a night tray can be left outside a door until midnight: soup, a sandwich, cheese or a pot of tea. Ask the porter. The tea is free, and nobody will comment on the hour.
Please tell us about allergies when you book, not when you sit down. With one kitchen and one set of boards, the chef likes to plan ahead.
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