Woodbridge In Winter

Photos by Peter Hunt

The country hotel, the roaring fire, the delicious food, the snug, warm room, the fluffy duvet…these are the things I want to tick for a festive break in “Ye Olde Englande” - but until recently, the search too often ended in a rather soggy disappointment.

So it is with regret, really, that I share the following gem because next year it might be fully booked given it is the perfect getaway. The Crown at Woodbridge is a mere hour and a bit out of London Liverpool Street by a fast train that whizzes through East Anglia. From Woodbridge railway station it is about 100 paces to walk, so if you see the blue plaque to John Clarkson, who campaigned for the abolition of slavery in the 18th century, you’ve already walked too far. Inside it’s warm with big squashy sofas and a welcoming bar, and upstairs, a little design detail treat in the room. I hate TVs in rooms on weekend getaways, and the flat screen is there, but it cunningly blends in to a wall of traditional sheep’s hurdle, woven from hazel switches; it sounds arch and forced, a little twee perhaps, but believe me, it works.

There are, I know, quite a few hotels in the UK now where they have thrown out the beer-strained carpets and jazzed things up thanks to the Farrow and Ball paint colour card. But often what goes out with the old is the kindness, replaced by cookie cutter hotel management.

Not so at the Crown. This weekend, the whole of Suffolk was under snow. The roads turned to glass. When we eventually got back to the hotel after a hair raising drive - make that skid - from a house party at a remote farm (a five mile drive took over two hours). We staggered back over the threshold into the Crown in the wee small hours, the night watchman stoked up the fire, poured stiff drinks, (none of that “the bar closes at 11” nonsense) then, glory be! he nipped into the kitchen and rustled up a mound of hot buttered toast. And it didn’t even appear on our (very reasonable) bill.

People do go to The Crown for the food and, not surprisingly given the local produce around these parts includes crabs fresh from chilly waters as well as locally smoked fish and also organic chickens and beef raised nearby. Get to The Crown in time for lunch, or at the very least, dinner and tuck in to such starters as buttery creek oysters or grilled sardines, the latter served with haricot beans, pesto and bruschetta. For mains, there’s breast of local pheasant with honey roast parsnips, or local Orford skate wing, cockle and bacon butter or a steaming plate of leek and Coddenham Suffolk gold macaroni cheese and blackened tomatoes.

The breakfast, included in the overnight tariff, includes the best porridge I have tasted South of the Border (and my blood is 100% Scottish), here served both sweet with stewed plums and figs or in the traditional manner, salted with Maldon Sea Salt flakes. You could follow that with Lowestoft Manx kippers or The Crown full English; (sausages, dry cured bacon, black pudding, field mushrooms, tomatoes and the eggs of your choice) or even soft-boiled eggs and Marmite soldiers.

What to do in Woodbridge? This delightful (rich) little town has four bookshops, a glorious church, the tallest windmill in East Anglia, a bracing walk along the water past all the boat builders and even a violin maker. We only bought handmade Christmas decorations for our tree, but as we trudged back to the railway station in the snow to return to London, we felt almost indecently happy.

The Crown, Woodbridge, Suffolk, IP121AD. +01394 384242; http://www.thecrownatwoodbridge.co.uk