The Bath Arms at Longleat

The Bath Arms at Longleat offers the kind of reassuring, ‘get your battery back up to 100 per cent’ break that you leave feeling truly buoyed. They achieve this by selecting the friendliest staff from the area, ensuring the pub inspires warm fellowship between locals and minibreakers, and by plying you with top worldly wines and local brews with a good head on them. And, if you’ve had one too many Butcombes or slugs of the hotel’s own Horning Ale, they’ll spark you back up with a free Bloody Mary come breakfast. Its antiquity has bestowed plenty of character, with the odd creaky floorboard, wonkily shaped room and heritage trees in the garden; but rooms with a mod-rustic look and elevated country dining gently modernise it. Plus, Longleat Safari Park’s spectacular beasts are so close by – you can even faintly hear them from some rooms.