In many ways the Museum Inn feels a bit like a smart hotel. It has its own restaurant, a light and airy room with double-height ceilings as well as a cosy lounge with books and comfy sofas set around a fireplace. And the rooms in the seventeenth-century part of the building are charming.

As soon as you enter the bar you find yourself in the heart of the establishment: a warm and friendly environment in which to sink a few pints or enjoy a good meal that makes it a pub first and foremost.

It's your classic country pub: a huge inglenook fireplace, flagstoned floor, wooden tables and yellow walls.

The Museum has eight rooms, half of which are in the main house: three cottage-style bedrooms with white bathrooms, plush furnishings and antiques and the large, four-poster General's bedroom, so named after the archaeologist General Augustus Lane Fox Pitt Rivers who built the inn to offer accommodation for visitors to his museum in the 1800s. The only disappointment is the four stable rooms, which are small and lack the character of the main house rooms, despite being freshened up with some designer wallpaper since new owners took over two years ago.

Following a massive overhaul under the direction of Vicky Elliot and Mark Stephenson, the Museum has made a name for itself with its food.

Top chef Mark Treasure, who earned his Michelin star at the Feathers Hotel in Woodstock, was recruited and he brought five staff with him from Oxfordshire.

Brilliantly executed dishes include roasted saddle of venison with a chestnut and wild mushroom butter and sea bass with crab, chives and spring onion potatoes with lime. All main courses come with local organic vegetables and much of the game and meat is also sourced locally.

Breakfast is an equally gastronomic affair with freshly squeezed orange juice, cereals, full English breakfast with Wiltshire streaky bacon or a grilled Manx kipper with lemon, rounded off with toast and homemade preserves.

The Museum Inn attracts the hunting, fishing and shooting set and its fair share of celebrity guests. Madonna and Guy Ritchie have been spotted (their country estate is close by), along with Griff Rhys Jones, Sir Edward Heath and Lord Lamont.

· Stable rooms £75, cottage rooms £95 and the General's bedroom is £120, all B&B. Dinner £25. (01725 516261)