The Beckford Arms

• Style Great Brit-inn
• Setting Tisbury’s walkers’ wonderland

A family-friendly Wiltshire pub with rooms, The Beckford Arms is perfect for a weekend of lazy lunches and rural rambles. This gorgeous gastropub’s child-welcoming credentials come not in the form of toddler kit on tap, but in the laid-back atmosphere and amenable attitude of staff.

Need to know

• Rooms Eight, including one suite.
• Rates Double rooms from £79.17, excluding tax at 20 per cent.
• More details Rates exclude breakfast. Children Under-16s stay in parents’ rooms on extra beds and are charged at £25 a night, including breakfast. Cots are provided free for under-3s.
• Facilities Gardens, private dining room, pétanque piste, sandpit, DVD library, and free WiFi throughout. More details
• Pet‐friendly Dogs are allowed, in Room 6 only. For £10 a night, you get a bed for Fido, plus a bowl and biscuits.
• Also  Before you arrive, organise an in-room spa treatment.

In the know

• Favourite family rooms You won’t fit a cot into a Small Double, but Standard Doubles are spacious enough to hold an extra bed alongside the parental king-size. Rooms 1 and 2 interconnect. If juniors having their own room appeals, book the attic suite, which comprises a large double, small extra bedroom, ensuite and separate sitting room.
• In your room Flatscreen TV with DVD player, CD player, Roberts Radio, iPod dock, tea- and cofee-making facilities, handmade Bramley toiletries, Egyptian cotton sheets, Siberian goose down duvets and vintage Welsh blankets.
• Check–out 11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm.
• Book ahead Book babysitting one week in advance; you might like to pre-arrange some in-room treatments, too. More details
• And... Don't forget your changing mat: there are no baby-changing facilities.

Food and drink at The Beckford Arms

• Dining This a pub with serious commitment to all things local and seasonal. Chef Pravin Nayar’s menu reads like a pastoral idyll of a picnic: home-smoked wild salmon, game pies with home-made pastry, Brixham hake and Tamworth pork; Beckford hams and piccalilli, or a pint and a pork pie with house chutney at the bar… Anglo-puds include Pimm’s and summer berry jelly or Cambridge burnt cream with shortbread. Low-food-mile ingredients, including herbs and vegetables from the garden, are used wherever possible. On occasion, whole suckling pigs are spit-roasted on the bar’s open fire.
• Family fare A tailored menu for little Smiths features staples such as fish 'n' chips and pasta carbonara, all served with buttered vegetables. Dessert has been turned into an art form with DIY sundaes: children are invited to accessorise their vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce and candy. Buy yourself grazing time by requesting paper and coloured pencils. Highchairs are available.
• Top table Head for the conservatory for family dining in a bright and airy setting, with pale wood panelling, gilt-framed mirrors and garden views. Or, opt for a low-key occasion by dining in the sitting room with a DVD over dinner.
• Hotel bar First and foremost, this is a relaxed and cosy country pub that lures in locals with a good selection of bitters and ales: try a half of Phoenix, brewed especially for the Beckford when it reopened in 2011. Children are welcome throughout, although toddlers will need containing around the open fire and on the no-mercy parquet floors.
• Room service There’s no room service at the pub, but staff will happily heat up milk for your baby, and you can plunder in-room nibbles such as pork pies and crisps from the bar.
• Also Note that if you’re planning to wheel Junior to dinner in a buggy or pram, there are some steps up to the bar and to the toilets.