suetibu

Hi. We are arriving on a Fri evening(8 pm) at Heathrow(from NYC).
Staying at an airport hotel that night. Picking up car in the morning. Need to be in Cambridge by Sunday night.

Would like to explore the countryside ( first time) and stay in a pub in a small village. We are not trying to see everything. Just want to relax. We will be in cambridge for 5 nights ( work related) and will spend our last night in London before flying out the following sat.

Thank you,
S

Mimar

Pubs are basically drinking places. Only a few might have rooms. For a real English experience you could stay in a B&B. Or a small hotel/inn that has a bar. If you stay in a not-too-small town, there's bound to be a pub down the street.

So let us know your budget and whether you require in-house alcohol.

alihutch

This might work for you...lovely spot
http://www.brocketarms.com/

flanneruk

I couldn't disagree more with mimar.

Pubs have all sorts of roles. For at least the past three hundred years, those roles in many village pubs have included overnight accommodation. "Pub" in this context can range from a boozer with a couple of bedrooms to a smallish, old, hotel: the essential feature across the range is a proper pub bar, open to and used by, the local population

The recent B&B invention is usually, IMHO, downright unpleasant - and in most decent, non-touristy, villages a great deal rarer than pubs with rooms. The grisly experience almost inevitably involves spending your evening in your undersized room, sitting in a dismal, swirly-carpeted, TV room, or going out to the pub to get away from the place. It's a "real English experience" in the same way that inedible food used to be.

I'm no expert on the bits of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire on the way to Cambridge. But the Brocket Arms (www.brocketarms.com) used to be a decent pub when I lived nearby - and unusually the photos on its website make it look a lot duller than it really is. Its one (in my view important) drawback is that Ayot St Lawrence is an object lesson (though a jolly pretty one) in what happens to one-horse hamlets once the horse dies of boredom. But the booze was fine, it had decent food and there were great walks radiating from the hamlet. "Hamlet", btw, because if I remember right, apart from the pub and a never-open church, the place consists only of a few houses - one of them George Bernard Shaw's former gaff.

alihutch

And you can go round GBS's gaff...and as well as the ruined church, which I don't think that you can visit, there is a Palladian church that you can.
You could also visit St Albans easily from there...

suetibu

Hi,

Ok.. My budget is <$200.

Let me rephrase the question - any lovely inns/b&bs/pubs in a small village well situated in the country? i.e we could go for walks from its location.And the village has a pub etc..

Somewhere in the Cotswolds was my first choice but I am new to the area..

Thank you,
S

janisj

"<i>Somewhere in the Cotswolds was my first choice . .</i>"

The Cotswolds are in the wrong direction -- they aren't between LHR and Cambridge.

So -- does it not need to be between the airport and Cambridge?

But driving west to the Cotswolds on Saturday AM and then all the way back across the country to Cambridge on Sunday is a LOT of to-ing and fro-ing for essentially one day in the country.

One semi issue is -- while there are some downright pleasant places in the area north of London that lies between LHR and Cambridgeshire, it isn't a scenic/village "wonderland".

I'd maybe consider going west just a bit (not nearly as far as the Cotswolds) and stay in one of the riverside towns/villages (Wallingford, Henley-on-Thames, Dorchester or even Windsor). All would have lovely walks and be fairly easily accessible back to the M25 to start your journey to Cambridge.

A few to look at just to get an idea:

http://www.white-hart-hotel-dorchester.co.uk/
http://www.thegeorgedorchester.co.uk/
http://www.thecherrytreeinn.com/

tahl

Saffron Walden is in the right direction, is full of interesting and unusual medieval buildings from its heyday several hundred years ago, and was a generally pleasant place to visit when I was there 20+ years ago. Might it fit the OP's bill?

suetibu

Thank you. These look nice. The Chilterns look like a closer option than the cotswolds..

S