Mark Frary also stayed at Great House. Read his review here

The hotel: well, I must say, you are very lucky. If I’d found this place on my own time, there’s no way I’d be telling you about it. Just like there’s no way I’d tell you where the family silver was hidden, if we had any. Sadly, I found this place during work time, so I’m contractually obliged to spill the beans. The Great House is a lovely little foodie hotel, or restaurant-with-rooms, or place to stay where le grub’s rather good. I say “le grub” because, despite being in the world’s most English village, the Great House is quite French, and that’s the first thing to know about it. Your amiable-despite-being-French hosts are Monsieur and Madame Crépy, and their Gallic outpost is housed in the sort of fairy-tale 14th-century town that would give a surveyor a subsidence headache.

The rooms: dammit, I’m going to have to tell you my favourite. It’s room 3 – a suite, but not at suite prices (from £90 in the week, £150 at the weekend). You get a poky-but-posh bathroom, a royals-in-the-country bedroom and a sumptuous living room, complete with a not-very-French decanter of sherry. Room 1, in the 17th-century front of the house, has a magnificent four-poster, and room 4, up in the attic, is all cute and oak-beamed.

The food: it’s just better to have French people in the kitchen, isn’t it? I spent most of a Sunday afternoon musing on this point over a languorous late-summer lunch. We’re deep into autumn now, so populating the menu you’ll find moules marinières au cidre et bacon, pot-roasted partridge served with grain mustard and celeriac, pan-fried calf’s liver and grilled bacon topped with wild mushroom sauce, and roasted fillet of pork served with a port and sage sauce. The cheeseboard is magnifique and the desserts the final nail in any plan to do something productive with your afternoon or night.

What about les surroundings? No “les” required, mes amis. Lavenham isn’t remotely French. It is English in a linen-jacket-and-pipe-and-surfeit-of-antiques-shops kind of way. No supermarkets. No yoof centres. No Pizza Express. And because it’s closer to Essex than the Suffolk coast, it seems to have escaped the attentions of those insufferable boaty weekenders with their Pimm’s and their roof racks and their children called Tabitha and Bampie. It has been described as England’s best-preserved English village and I can’t see any reason to disagree with that.

If you ask nicely, Madame Crépy will furnish you with a map of a very pleasant, three-hour, circular walk. We got lost halfway round in a strange lake area, took refuge in a tiny pub called The Cock, which turned out to serve proper beer, and then took a short cut back to the sherry decanter.

Doubles from £70, room-only; three-course dinner or Sunday lunch £25.95; 01787 247431, www.greathouse.co.uk . The restaurant is closed on Sunday evenings and all Monday

Times recommends

• Dubai cheaper than Doncaster as room rates tumble
• World Cup 2010 - how to follow England
• Copenhagen: Europe's greenest city