Guardian Review by Sally Shalam. Saturday 7th March

This week's B&B comes recommended by a reader who heaps praise on the breakfast and is clearly better at finding places than me. We drive in and out of the village of Brearton several times, having wilfully ignored my friend's satnav. By the time we discover the gadgetry is accurate, I've given in and phoned for help.

Next we're haring down a little road on to an estate, distant lights twinkling across fields shrouded in darkness. At the end of it we reach the illuminated homeliness of North Dockenbush.

Our host, Oliver Whiteley, shows us the dining room, sitting room and bedrooms. Plum, it says in gilt letters on my bedroom door, and Blue on that of my friend, Angela.

"My room has the first overhead lighting I've ever approved of," she says, leaving her pale haven of toile de Jouy to nose around the dark-walled expanse of Plum.

"That is a bed and a half," she says admiringly, counting no fewer than seven pillows. Mine does indeed seem to be the plum room. Nice bathrobe - plain cotton with a waffle lining and perfectly folded. Homemade biscuits accompany (Twinings) tea and coffee things, but Angela's far more interested in the cut glass and silver clustered in a corner. "Ooh this smells wonderful," she says opening a decanter of port.

We descend to sit on big brown sofas, in front of an impressive blaze, while Oliver brings tea and wine and tells us he has only been here a year and that the house, leased from a country estate, was "bloody horrendous" when he took it on.

He used to manage the Beaufort Polo Club in Gloucestershire before returning home to Yorkshire, and now keeps chickens and pigs (the dry-cured bacon at breakfast is from his traditional Saddlebacks) and breeds dogs. In stables out the back are his competition horses that guests - if sufficiently competent - may ride. Oh, and in his spare time he runs an events company with his sister.

"I've never stayed in a B&B ever," he tells us. "I don't give a monkey's what anyone else is doing."

He doesn't need to - he's getting it right. We're so cosseted it's a strain to go out, but the proximity of a foodie pub, the Malt Shovel, means Oliver doesn't do dinner (members of the Wolsey Lodge scheme, which he is, often do). Instead, he lays on transport - dropping guests off, while the pub staff (a family of opera singers) bring them back.

No impromptu singing at the Malt Shovel tonight (it can happen, we're told), and Angela's underwhelmed by her food, but not by my platter of smoked fish and meat from their own smokery and a fantastic lemon posset.

Brown fields, stark trees, a neat vegetable plot and snowdrops huddled against the hedges are revealed next morning. My bathroom is, well, just a bathroom, but there are nice big bottles of Molton Brown. Down in the dining room we're greeted by easy listening and a crackling fire. "I love this colour," says Angela, admiring restful green walls. She's not the only one. In the visitors' book someone has written: "My poor husband will now have to redecorate our entire house."

What of breakfast? From cut glass and refreshingly unclunky white china we sample fresh OJ, fruit salad and toasted bread from Betty's of Harrogate. When the cooked platefuls arrive Angela pronounces the bacon "delicious - what bacon used to taste like. Great sausage too." Scrambled eggs are perfectly soft and creamy. "What a good cook," she says, with a little sigh of contentment. "He really ought to think about doing dinner as well."