Formerly a village local, the Howard Arms is now owned by one of those inn chains with a twee name (“Little Gems Country Dining”), and its website employs the dreaded term “gastro­pub”. Sounds a bit dodgy — but I’m glad I wasn’t deterred.

The minute I walk in and spot the sign beside the bar, I get a toasty feeling about the weekend ahead. “We take home-grown veg over the bar as payment,” it says. “Ask the chef and do a deal.”

The Howard hovers handsomely above Ilmington village green, looking much the same as it does in the century-old sepia photographs that hang in the bar.

Indoors, I find shining flagstones, pews plundered from country churches and an ingle­nook big enough to park a car in — all scrubbed up in a tasteful, country-posh kind of way. The same can be said for the bedrooms, which are a deftly chosen combination of vintage furniture and sprightly colour schemes, with iPod docks, flatscreen doodahs and designer toiletries on tap.

You can choose between three rooms above the pub and five bolder new-builds in an annexe out the back. The latter was officially opened by the vicar of Ilmington last autumn.

The fat folder of day-trip leaflets beside my bed includes a walking trail drawn up by local schoolchildren. Yes, it seems the Howard’s community credentials are alive and thriving. And while it’s true that the crowd downstairs has come to dine rather than sup pints of Old Hooky, I find there is a proper crackle of native Cotswold conversation.

Ah, the Cotswolds. This is a really lovely corner of them, replete with honey-stone cottages, but pleasantly detached from tourist honeypots such as Broadway and Bourton-on-the-Water.

What are the rooms like?

Not vast, but impeccably comfortable. Mine is the Village Room, a semi-suite with a squashy sofa zone and windows that overlook the green. Its curtain-hung half-tester bed looks a bit like a puppet theatre, adding to the sense of post-prandial occasion.

Mine is one of the original inn rooms — the five in the annexe are slightly funkier and a bit more expensive, with splashy-chic wallpapers; and in the Oak Room there’s a beautiful little four-poster lit by lamps shaped like tree branches.

And the food?

The inn takes its commitment to parish-grown produce seriously: the blackboard list of local suppliers is longer than the menu.

Bob the chef grows his own herbs and home-makes the pâté and pickles, and there’s a proper English heft to his cooking. Some is loosen-your-belt comfort food — twice-baked Warwickshire cheese souffle, Cots­wold lamb with rosemary gravy — but it all comes with a drizzle of humour: “Fish may contain bones; puddings contain calories.”

What’s in the neighbourhood?

Ilmington is a hard place to leave, hunkering under its hill in the northernmost crook of the Cotswolds. So before you do, grab the map of that walking trail and have a wander. It leads you among grand manor houses and secret fish ponds, on roads with names such as Buckle Street, Tinker’s Lane and Grump Street. It’s the sort of village that makes you think John Major was right, after all — I really do bump into a lady cycling home through the churchyard in twinset and pearls.

What else is there?

It’s only a 20-minute drive to Stratford-upon-Avon, where every other house seems to have been lived in by the Bard, his missus, his servants or his dog. The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is still in the throes of its big rebuild, but the Courtyard Theatre has proved a cracking understudy, and the RSC’s new Julius Caesar opened there on Friday.

Alternatively, point your bonnet south, towards the swelling hills of the Cotswold escarpment. The masterpiece arts and crafts garden at Hidcote Manor looks dazzling in late spring; or there’s Compton Verney, a Robert Adam mansion stacked with medieval art, Georgian portraiture and extremely jolly British folk art. I especially liked the roomful of vintage shop signs, with giant fish, sheep and pigs flying from the rafters.

Doubles from £115, B&B; dinner main courses from £11.50; 01608 682226, www.howardarms.com.

The Royal Shakespeare Company ticket hotline is 0844 800 1110, www.rsc.org.uk

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