What with The Kingham Plough and The Wild Rabbit just down the road, you may think we have quite enough pubs-with-rooms in this ridiculously photogenic part of the Cotswolds, thank you very much. But with house prices what they are around here, staying a night or two gives you a window into what it might be like to actually live in Kensington-on-the-Wold – and who knows, you may bump into Liv Tyler while juggling heritage tomatoes at Daylesford Farm Shop. So there can never be enough pubs-with-rooms, especially when they’re as accomplished as The Fox at Oddington. Open just in time for Daylesford’s 20th anniversary in 2022, Carole Bamford’s sequel to The Wild Rabbit doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but takes a jolly-hollyhocks 16th-century pub, keeps the public bar as spit-and-sawdust as possible – equestrian rosettes on beams, wonky flagstones, inglenook fire below – then adds a high-achieving restaurant and six individually designed bedrooms. Foxes appear in topiary and puns (‘For fox sake’ on the bar counter); a bright garden lawn has quoits and a converted horsebox for summer spritzes. Bamford’s skill is in creating a countryside design code that never feels too mannered or kitsch but totally at ease with itself, which helps guests do the same. Floral-print linens (mostly hand-dyed in India), vintage green bottles, milking stools and four-posters abound; all rooms are cosy but the most covetable are the groundfloor Den, for its stencilled leaves on the floorboards leading to a private garden; The Hunting Lodge up in the eaves, for the family space of additional twin beds, and the split-level Huntsman. As for the food, there are plenty of gastropubs that fail to deliver on the menu’s promise, but not here. Alan Gleeson, formerly of Hambleton Hall, is adept at plucking good things from the farm – broad beans, Jersey royals and artichokes, Barnsley chops – and making flavoursome dishes that sing of fresh ingredients (like the farm, The Fox’s sustainable credentials have deep roots). Guests can take advantage of a guided tour of Daylesford (now with shiny new spa and members’ club), and a discount at the shop. Just across the road is a newly transformed cottage, The Coachmans, with four bedrooms, for those who want to daydream about relocating here a little longer. Rick Jordan
Address: High St, Lower Oddington, Moreton-in-Marsh GL56 0UR
Price: doubles from £225
