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Radio Times South West. 4th-10th February 2006

Timeless Quality... Mimic Jon Culshaw's impression of Combe House

London is an incredibly addictive city...so full of opportunities. You really don't know what's going to happen from one day to the next and that's why I love living there. But you have to be careful. If you're there for too long, you can become jaded. You have to get out just to catch your breath, People talk about " recharging your batteries", and I realise it's time for me to do just that.

Devon's not really an area that I know at all. I'm a Lancashire lad - but we decide to try a relaxing weekend break at Combe House Hotel in Gittisham, near Exeter (described by Prince Charles as the "ideal English village". Getting there is ridiculously easy: we get the train from Waterloo to Honiton, then it's a short cab ride from the station. As soon as I get off the train, I know I've made the right decision. Just getting your lungs full of that country air and not having to listen to the constant hum of traffic. It's as if I can feel my brain uncoiling.

As for the hotel itself...well, what can I say? You step inside and it's like falling back through time to the 1600s. Parts of it date all the way back to the 1300s. Huge sandstone fireplaces, creaky old floorboards...I'm sure I'll turn around and see Queen Elizabeth 1 checking in for the night. It's quite a big place - about 15 rooms - but it doesn't have that horrible hotel atmosphere. It feels like we're in

somebody's home. Just really, really cosy. And when you look out of the windows, you've got more surprises. We wake up to see pheasants and a herds of arabian horses. And if walking is your thing, you've got hills and moors right on your doorstep.

We decide to have a bit of a lie-in - well, it is meant to be a relaxing break - so we have breakfast in bed, but for the evening meal, I just have to go down to the banqueting hall. Incredible! The walls are covered in old portraits of kings, queens and knights, all looking down at us. We eventually go for the roast beef, but what they bring is much more....I must have about half a cow on my plate. It's a Desperate Dan-sized portion, complete with all the trimmings. Although we don't get the log fire going in our room, we do light candles and enjoy the views out across the night sky. Without all that light pollution, it's truly spectacular. Both Venus and Mars are visible and I really have never seen anything like it.

Combe House is a real find. One of those special places to visit time and time again. It almost seems a shame to tell anyone else about it.

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Times Online – Sept 25th 2005

The World's Best Hotels For Dirty Weekends

winning food and only 15 rooms: our favourites are the quirky Pitt, with its bed under a mullioned window; and the Willington, for the thought-provoking four-poster. Both are straight out of the pages of a racy period novel, with stunning views over a verdant valley where thoroughbreds roam free. So rip those bodices and get busy.

Daily Mail - Saturday June 4th 2005

Combe House voted one of the Top Ten Glorious British Sunsets

As the hills of Dartmoor turn purplish blue, magnificent Arab horses from a nearby stud gallop in the secluded valley beyond. You won't find a hotel with a more English setting than Combe House, a Grade 1 Elizabethan Manor surrounded by softly verdant parkland in the village of

Gittisham. The hotel bar's speciality drink makes a delicious aperitif: the 'Dowa' consists of honey, ice, vodka and crushed limes, all sipped through a straw, and comes from the Swahili word for medicine.

The Good Food Guide - 2005

Philip Leach runs the kitchen at this many-gabled Elizabethan manor house, where architectural grandeur does not translate into a stuffy ambience. The dedication to sourcing fine seasonal and often local ingredients is clearly a driving obsession, and the sylvan setting includes a large kitchen garden producing an array of herbs, vegetables and fruit. Begin with a woodsy pairing of ceps and leeks in an open ravioli sauced with cep velouté, or tempura oysters with celeriac and oyster soup, before moving on to pot-roast poussin simply paired with colcannon and wild mushrooms,

or poached fillet of halibut with tagliatelle and pesto dressing. A six-course tasting menu is on hand if choices prove difficult. Puddings range from chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream to pistachio bavarois with sesame tuiles and milk sorbet. France, in particular Bordeaux and – unusually – Chablis, is the first love of the wine list, with some well-chosen New World back-up. Half bottles are in plentiful supply and six come by the glass. House wine is a rather steep £17.50