The Kings Head, Grassington

DINNER, BED AND BREAKFAST £170 per couple OCTOBER & NOVEMBER ONLY
* Overnight stay for 2 people per room
* Dine from our chefs blackboard (£20 per person food allowance)
* Breakfast on check morning

There's something regal about arriving at the King’s Head pub with its hefty, iron-studded door and well-worn flagstone floors. Once inside you pass a medieval fireplace that wouldn’t be out of place in a palace.

There’s also the biggest blackboard menu, a 10ft-tall description of award-winning local dishes that’s updated every day.

Our friendly team await behind the brass pumps on a black granite bar and offers a hearty welcome while polishing glasses.

But it is a foaming pint of honest Yorkshire beer that really beckons:

Despite the historic feel of this Yorkshire Dales retreat.

Wooden furnishings have been sanded back to the grain and trimmed with a fresh lick of paint (Farrow & Ball No 82 Dix Blue, in case you wondered). To the rear, a thick-carpeted staircase winds past a library cupboard full of books and DVDs.

Accommodation comprises of 4 bespoke bedrooms on our top floor, and each named after a monarch.

The top floor, King Edward VII, is where I stayed. It’s a comfy, twin-room with lots of stylish touches and an ensuite complete with Duck Island toiletries.

Tea-making facilities sit alongside sweet treats from our chef patron upon arrival. Look out the bedroom window and there is a view of Upper Wharfedale.

The village sits where the River Wharfe and Kettlewell Beck meet and is a mix of limestone bridges and cottages. It was the setting for the 2003 film Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.

Good walks abound and I started with a two-mile meander along sheep trails to the neighboring village of Starbottom.

For something more invigorating, there’s a five-mile hike west over a 1,500ft limestone ridge to Arncliffe, a village with its own claim to fame as the fictional Beckindale in early episodes of TV soap Emmerdale.