Our reviewer puts aside his political prejudices and laps up the Downton Abbey-dreamscape, top food and idyllic setting of this swanky country pub on a posh estate
We lefties have a vexed relationship with the landed aristocracy. But if the gentry must persist, can we agree that the least it can do is open more swanky country pubs on its estates? Comrades, we cannot expropriate their land, but they owe us a nice weekend away.
Welcome to Brocklesby Estate, home of the Earls of Yarborough: a 27,000-acre, Downton Abbey dreamscape in the Lincolnshire Wolds. Amid its fields, fens and tied houses is the tiny village of Great Limber and the New Inn, a grade II-listed brick pub reopened in 2014. It’s been given a Farrow & Ball makeover – that standard gastropub aesthetic – but off-beat, personal Yarborough artefacts make interesting diversions. There are sentimental personal effects (an Inuit fancy dress outfit, worn at a family party), specially commissioned sculptures and light fittings, and an old stable door, all hung like works of art.
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