The Ragged Cot, Gloucestershire

It’s not the word that Ian Rayner, the owner, uses, but the driving force behind the Ragged Cot is an old-fashioned sense of hospitality, of wanting to be welcoming to all-comers. You see it in the signs as you walk in, announcing that wellies and children are welcome and that Sunday lunch will be served until 5pm. You see it in the dog baskets dotted throughout the 17th-century building, or the picnic blankets you can take out to a shady spot in the garden. It’s there again in the free quiches and biscuits put out on the bar on a Sunday night “because the kitchen’s closed and we don’t want anyone to go hungry”. And if you are staying the night, you’ll see it in the home-made fudge and nightcap menu left on your bed.

Not so long ago this was a grimy warren of rooms, famous only for the twin horrors of the pink nylon sheets in its bedrooms and the wife of a former landlord who was said to haunt the bar, but, after a three-month refit, Rayner and his business partner, Miles Johnson, have turned the Ragged Cot into the sort of pub you wish was around every country corner, with its easy mix of mellow Cotswold stone, Farrow & Ball tones, creeper-clad terraces and unpretentious menus.

“We get a chalk-and-cheese mix of customers,” says Rayner. “Our binmen come in for a pint and some bangers and mash at the end of their shift, and you might see Captain Mark and Zara Phillips at the next table [Gatcombe Park is just a mile down the road].

A lot of people wouldn’t think of putting those two social groups together, but it works. We’ve tried to create a boozer for locals, but also to draw people in with the food and rooms.”

With two pubs closing down every week, landlords have to find new ways to fill their tables. The Ragged Cot is open from breakfast, through brunch, lunch and afternoon tea to dinner. “We’re trying to create a traditional inn, like it used to be, where one place was the pub, the hotel, the tea rooms. I think people have forgotten how it was when there was some old Dorothy who ran a pub and she’d bake a Victoria sponge and put it on the bar in the afternoon,” says Rayner, who also owns the Kings Arms in Litton, Somerset, and the Kensington Arms in Redland, Bristol.

What he most certainly doesn’t want is for the Ragged Cot to be viewed as a gastropub or restaurant. “We’re a pub first and foremost. We just happen to have rooms and do nice food,” he says. “And even though we’ve done everything up, we don’t mind if people come in with dirty wellies on, or with the dogs, or let their kids clamber over the sofas. Anything goes, really.”

The head chef, Kevin Chandler, formerly of the Pear Tree in Whitley, Wiltshire, bakes his own bread, butchers his own meat, and puts the whole animal to innovative use. Bar snacks include Pigs’ Twigs with Mayo (long, thin sticks of pork crackling), Deep Fried Pigs’ Ears and Tartare Sauce, or Jellied Ham Hock, but you’ll also find chicken Kiev, traditional ploughman’s, and spotted dick with custard. As he and Rayner both have babies, they also plan to introduce a purée menu for young children. (“No, not puréed pig’s head,” Rayner jokes.) Cheeses come from a neighbour who is developing a washed-rind cheese made with local cider just for them.

“You can overplay the local card,” says Rayner, “Local doesn’t automatically mean good, but where we can, we do. And that’s great because, if you are giving back to the community, putting money back into the farmers’ pockets, they’ll be more appreciative of you. And that’s what it’s all about.”

The Ragged Cot, Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire (01453 884643; www.theraggedcot.co.uk). Rooms from £120

The Wellington Arms, Hampshire

Visit the Wellington Arms, and the eggs on the bar are from the chickens round the back, and you can pick up six for £1.50 while your pint is topped up.

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