Gold Top Barn (0117 204 7830; canopyandstars.co.uk; £175 per night) may have spent its first hundred years as a dairy, but it has been ingeniously transformed into a special place to stay. The barn is mostly set on one floor, but a mezzanine level offers views of nearby fields from the double bed, making clever use of the space. Below, the kitchen is equipped with a Smeg fridge which, on our arrival, was chilling a jar of homemade truffles.
Aside from the cosy qualities (the ready-to-light fire, the deep sofa, the miniature spherical lights illuminating the backyard, the long bathtub), host Nicola nods to Gold Top’s heritage with giant recording jar lamp shades, milk churn bedside tables and raw plaster walls.
While we stayed as a trio, Gold Top would be equally suitable for a couple looking for a quiet getaway, or two couples who know each other quite well (the second bed is found on the ground floor in its own room). And while it does have a kitchen and dining area, since we were celebrating a big occasion it only felt right to eat out on the Friday and Saturday evenings. We didn’t have to look far.
A meal at Laurence Olivier’s old local
Somnolent Ashurst slips happily and quietly under the radar. But its 300-odd residents are treated to a truly delightful 16th-century country pub, the Fountain Inn (01403 710219; fountainashurst.pub), which delivers high-quality meals while retaining its ‘proper’ pub status: roaring fire, real ale, low beams, flagstone floor, and the like. None other than Laurence Olivier used to sit by the fireplace with a drink; he was local to the area, and his funeral was held just around the corner in St James’s Church.
Baron Olivier wasn’t the first nor the last celebrity to visit the Fountain Inn. More than four decades ago, Sir Paul McCartney visited the pub to shoot the music video for his festive classic ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’, as confirmed by a plaque on the front of the building, which I only spotted on departure. Rumour has it that Adele, who has a home just around the corner in Partridge Green, pops in from time to time too.
It’s no surprise. The menu keeps things simple, but the food is of a far superior quality to your average village boozer. We had the Battered British Cod, the South Down Lamb Rump and the vegetarian tagine, all divine and perfectly paired with a bottle of Santa Ana Malbec.
If you have two nights in the area, a 15-minute drive from Ashurst you’ll find one of the best dining pubs south of the Thames, the Ginger Fox in Hassocks (01273 857888; thegingerfox.com). More restaurant than pub, it stands out for its long wine list (we opted for the Mas Puech Picpoul de Pinet) and moreish puddings, with a standard of service worthy of the Michelin Guide, in which it features.
A historic hill fort (with extraterrestrial credentials)
There are plenty of walks and bike rides accessible from Gold Top’s front door, including a pedal along a disused railway line and a walk to the River Adur, where a couple of harbour seals sometimes swim upstream. But we were drawn to a nearby ridgeway of historical (and extraterrestrial) intrigue.
The Chanctonbury Ring is a prehistoric hill fort, thought to date back to the late Bronze Age or possibly early Iron Age. It was abandoned and then reoccupied numerous times over the centuries, as a cattle enclosure, religious shrine, defensive outpost, until an 18th-century landowner named Charles Goring planted a ring of beech trees to beautify the site. The trees came down in the Great Storm of 1987, although a replanting effort has restored the site to its former glory.
