The Cat & Custard Pot

Nestled in the Cotswolds, this quintessentially English pub offers travellers a delightful blend of charm, comfort and hospitality in peaceful surroundings, says Rory Knight Bruce

- Rory Knight Bruce

ONE OF the pleasures of being of a certain age is seasoned friendships and familiar landscapes. Since the early 1970s, when I stayed often as a schoolboy on a farm near Cirencester, one for me has been to return to South Gloucestershire to find little has changed and several of the friends I made then are still there. We can talk without embarrassment about crushed velvet 'loon pants' and our teenage follies, sneaking into pubs while under age, a glitter ball at parties and the innocent whiff of patchouli oil.

For those parties I sometimes stayed, thinking little of the splendour of my surroundings, at both Easton Grey and Highgrove: two of the finest mansions in the county, then under different owners. At Highgrove I would listen in the hay barn to the stories of Paddy the groom and once, on going into the drawing room, was met by Harold Macmillan, whose son's house it was, with the words “Would you get me a whisky and soda, and one for yourself?” When Highgrove was sold to HM The King, Paddy was included in the inventory of sale.