The West Auckland Triangle

V & I have just returned from a dirty weekend - well, a distinctly wet and muddy one - at a rather swish hotel in one of the weird, undiscovered parts of England. The rural hinterland on the borders of County Durham and North Yorkshire seems to have been ignored by the rest of the country, and appears to be doing very nicely indeed thank-you. Tiny villages and farmsteads alternate with shabby-elegant 18th century gentleman's houses. Perspectives in low sunlight flash tantalising hints of medieval field systems; whitewashed barns and farm-buildings cosy up along narrow lanes. One reason for the region's bywater feeling is that the trunk roads thereabouts seem designed to make it practically impenetrable - we'd been there before but it still took a full 60 minutes of circulatory silly-buggers on the A68 and adjoining roads before we managed to find the right turnoff. The hotel is a sumptuous Jacobean manor house, with the recent addition of a modern spa. I can vouch for the incomparable luxury of an outdoor hot tub on a winter evening while the winds blow in from the Cleveland Hills. And the restaurant served possibly the best beef fillet that I've ever tasted. If the thought of an inaccessible country house in which magical things happen and to which you cannot find your way back sounds altogether too much like something out of Alain-Fournier change your plans for next weekend, abandon the kids, switch off the mobile phone and make your way into the heart of the zone of enchantment that is the West Auckland Triangle.