For sheer Yorkshire-ness you would have to go a long way before finding anything better than the market square at Middleham. The White Swan plays its part in projecting that settled, sturdy image which is so much a part of the county. Inside, the atmosphere shouts of antiquity, sheep drovers who have called there, owners and landlords who have made do, and in so doing have unwittingly preserved part of our heritage every bit as well as the National Trust, sometimes better.

You can eat in the bars or for other occasions in the gently shadowed dining room. Meals are of a straightforward nature, unfussed well-prepared food, where a sighting of Masham sausages is certainly not unknown. A starter of black pudding and bacon risotto could be followed by a crisp duck leg confit or a char-grilled rib-eye of beef with some blue Wensleydale cheese to wind up proceedings.

It is pubs like these, with rooms to let as they always used to have, that are very much the backbone of the increased enjoyment of eating out. In so many ways we are discovering how to use places and buildings in the way that they used to be; and in many cases were designed to be.