The Howard Arms

Ilmington

The one we drive out for

Some pubs earn a place on the list because they are close; this one earns it despite the distance. The Howard Arms sits on the green at Ilmington, a working village tucked into the folds of the north Cotswolds below Stratford-upon-Avon, and it is roughly forty minutes of quiet lanes from the cottage. We think of it as the destination supper rather than the casual one, the pub you point the car towards when the evening deserves a bit of occasion. It has never once let us down.

The building is honeyed local stone with low doorways and a mullioned front, and it has been standing here since Shakespeare's day, which is not idle marketing when Stratford is a short drive north. Inside, the rooms are warm and quietly handsome: flagstone floors, open fires in the colder months, candles on the tables once the light goes. There is a garden at the back that catches the last of the evening sun, which is where we tend to end up in summer with a first drink before the table is ready. It is unhurried in the best way, the sort of place where a midweek supper drifts into a second bottle and nobody starts clearing around you.

Why we make the trip

The kitchen is the reason. The Michelin Guide lists it as a Selected restaurant, which is exactly the right register: not a starched tasting-menu experience, but genuinely good cooking that respects the fact you came to a pub. The style pairs proper pub favourites with more considered starters, mains and puddings, and the ingredients are treated with care rather than fuss. Here is roughly how we approach an evening there.

• Book ahead It is popular and rightly so, so a table is worth reserving, especially at weekends. The kitchen serves lunch and dinner through the week with a longer run on Sundays.
• Start in the bar There is a carefully kept selection of ales, beers and wine, so we usually arrive early enough for a drink by the fire or in the garden before eating.
• Leave room for pudding The puddings have a reputation of their own and are not the course to skip. This is not the night to be sensible about it.
• Consider staying over There are eight bedrooms upstairs. If a long lunch has turned into an afternoon, or you would rather not drive back, it is an easy and rather lovely way to solve the problem.

The village itself

Ilmington rewards arriving with a little time in hand. It is a proper Cotswold village that has kept its composure, wrapped around a green with a community shop, an old orchard and the medieval church of St Mary. Footpaths climb out onto Ilmington Down, one of the higher points in Warwickshire, with long views back across the vale. A short walk before dinner, or a slow one the morning after if you stay, makes the drive out feel less like a detour and more like the point.

Getting there from the cottage

Reckon on around forty minutes by car, roughly twenty miles of country lanes running north-west through the villages toward Shipston-on-Stour and up into the hills. It is a pretty drive rather than a fast one, so we treat the journey as part of the evening and never rush it. If you are already out around Chipping Campden or Hidcote for the day, it is closer still, which makes it a natural end to an afternoon in that corner of the Cotswolds.

“Worth the drive every time. The food is genuinely excellent, the room is beautiful, and Ilmington feels like a village the modern world forgot to spoil.”

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Also nearby

• The Ebrington Arms · Pub · near Chipping Campden
• Hidcote · Gardens · nearby
• The Horse and Groom · Pub · Bourton-on-the-Hill