

32

"As chef Raymond Blanc’s countryside icon, set in a 15th-century manor built of sand-colored limestone and ashlar and ringed by lavender-rimmed walkways, duck ponds, and apple orchards, this hotel and restaurant opened in 1984, swiftly banked two Michelin stars, and has lured guests to the single-pub village of Great Milton for over three decades. A visit here once meant a meal in the summerhouse restaurant followed by a night in one of the eclectic bedrooms—art deco four-posters with mirrored headboards, canopies hung with blue toile, and suites paneled with bamboo meant to conjure Southeast Asia—but, with the launch of the Raymond Blanc Gardening School, I can now book day courses on the property too." - Jo Rodgers