We two couples stayed with Michael and Gwen Stewart for two nights. The Pines is an old fashioned carpetted, decorated, and furnished place with a sumptuous ambiance. They have tried to keep it like a Scottish hunting lodge, but it seemed a bit dark and not well it.
Nice lounges, with a big screen and Sky TV downstairs, and a stately home type of lounge full of terrific paintings upstairs. Pre dinner drinks served downstairs and after dinner coffees served upstairs. The whole place is full of really good art and artifacts. Our room was comfortable and pleasant enough, good shower over the bath. Gwen does the cooking and she is an outstanding cook. Really excellent, imaginative food. A daily changing single menu. Very excellent breakfasts with real fresh orange juice, home made bread and toast ,and overnight cooked porridge, all the very best. Care is taken, we discovered, to source the food ingredients: they go some distance to get supplies that are the best. Micheal was very attentive, chatty, and friendly. There is a nice large garden from where you can walk off into the woods or down to the river about 250 yards away. Very expensive at about £200 a room a night Dinner, B&B, but with a super host in Michael; we did not see Gwen other than at arriving and departing but she must have been a very busy lady as they do not have any other staff now.
