A two-night weekend break at Woolley Grange will set a family of three back £570 for dinner and bed and breakfast, with children paying extra for meals, or £610 at Calcot Manor, all-in. Both rates are based on the children sharing your room and include use of all the facilities, though spa treatments cost extra. Depending on the power of your purse that could seem a lot; then again it might seem a bargain considering what’s included. But the clientele is inevitably well-heeled, predominantly white, and comes from London and the Home Counties.Chapman won’t be making big changes to Woolley, although he believes in time it will have a spa and some self-catering apartments like the ones opened at Ickworth House in 2002.

“We’ve been able to carry on doing what we started out doing in much the same way, and I don’t feel the pressure to greatly change that. We will move forward in response to what people need, but gently.” Neither is he planning to expand Luxury Family Hotels, although he says he would open another hotel if the right opportunity came along.His attention is turning instead to a new venture in the French ski resort of Meribel, where he and Dickinson have just bought Meriski, a collection of chalets that they intend to run along similar lines to their UK hotels. He is confident that there is a gap in the holiday market for their kind of business but is reticent about revealing just what their plans are at this point “People keep having kids and lead stressful lives Now and again they need a break. We offer a solution to that.”Woolley Grange (01225 864705; ); Calcot Manor (01666 890391; ).. Twice a day, the sea rushes across the sandbanks and mudflats and closes the door on Lindisfarne.

Holy Island, remote and lonely, is cut off from the mainland for some five hours at a time. It’s not hard to imagine that this might have drawn the pilgrim monks of the seventh century, led by Aidan, fresh from that other holy island, Iona, off Mull. The island receives 500,000 visitors a year but most are squeezed, concertina-like, between the May and August bank holidays, which makes autumn a magnificent time to go. The bird-life is outstanding and the scenery is at its best whether you encounter the still glow of a clear day or have to brave the winds that these northern wilds can produce.The walk starts at the centre of the island’s village by the Ship pub on Marygate. Head downhill and take the first left, passing a car park on your left. The path soon becomes a country lane called the Straight Lonnen, with lichen-covered hawthorn hedges and dry-stone walls on either side. You share the path with roaming chickens and ducks from the nearby farm.