What captured my interest first was The Olde Bells website. You have to look at it. It’s so playful and sweet that while searching for a place for us to stay while shooting Gemma and Marc’s wedding in England this May, I kept coming back to it over and over. What captured my interest while we were there were the stories, the history, the people and the food.

Founded in 1135, this is Inn claims to be the oldest still-operating Inn in Britain. It’s made up of five buildings, three of which are fairly new, and the Main Inn and Malt House which are the older parts. Underneath the Inn, a tunnel was built hundreds of years ago, accessible in the past by a tiny door next to the fireplace in the pub. This tunnel connects the Inn with the monastery and it’s said that three monks are buried within it. Some even say the monks sometimes appear. We didn’t see them but we heard stories.

And the food…oh the food. The warm sweet potato and goats cheese roulade, the pithivier of wild mushrooms, spinach and roasted root vegetables with tarragon cream, the free range chicken breast with rosti potato, carrot ribbons and whole grain mustard sauce, then the desserts! Being chocolate lovers we couldn’t get past the dark chocolate and hazelnut fondant which the first night we ate here came with an incredible orange sherbet. The breakfasts were incredible as well and the staff were just as you would hope they would be. I particularly enjoyed my chat with Mandy the gardener for the Inn who also used to be the head Royal gardner at Ascott, a thirty minute drive from Hurley. She has created everything that lives in the gardens today and I so enjoyed photographing it.