Helen Brownings Royal Oak

Helen Browning's Royal Oak is a pub with 12 rooms in converted buildings set on an organic farm in the village of Bishopstone, on the edge of the Wiltshire Downs. Most rooms come with roll-top baths and sofa beds for families. A secluded campsite in an organic hay field, bordered by ancient woodland, offers a cheaper way to stay on the same land. The pub sits inside 1,500 acres of organic farmland on the Wiltshire Downs, run by Helen Browning, who took over Eastbrook Farm from her father in 1986 and began converting it to organic the same year.

The kitchen runs almost entirely on what the farm produces: saddleback pork, beef and lamb from Eastbrook, vegetables from the on-site patch, and milk from the farm's own dairy herds, processed at a neighbour five miles away and bought back as butter and cream. Fruit and nuts from Helen's own agroforestry project go into the pub's house gin and a blackcurrant spirit distilled on-site. Guests can join a farm safari to spot corn buntings and skylarks, walk the 5,000-year-old Ridgeway trail to the Uffington White Horse, or kick back in the garden with a pint of Arkell's.