The Bull, Beaumaris

Overlooking the Menai Strait, with its ever-changing light and views of Snowdonia’s brooding mountains, this coaching inn has propelled itself into the 21st century, with inventive food and chic rooms, without losing a jot of its 400-year-old history. And the location is pretty unbeatable, with the Victorian pier and fabulously turreted Beaumaris Castle right on the doorstep. Walkers can strike out on the Anglesey Coastal Path. Charles Dickens sojourned here when visiting Anglesey in 1859 – hence guest rooms are named after Dickens characters. But old fashioned they are not. Designed with a razor-sharp eye for detail, the rooms interweave period features with intricate wallpaper, bursts of colour, Hypnos mattresses draped in Egyptian cotton, Nespresso coffee machines and Welsh Cole & Co toiletries. Deluxe rooms feature rolltop baths, the four-poster room an antique mahogany four-poster bed, and the romance-ready suite in the eaves a scarlet canopy bed.  Other rooms in the recently resurrected grade II-listed Townhouse are more contemporary still, with playful colours and  the stand-out, silver-kissed loft suite. The Coach restaurant pleasingly mixes the old and new, with lots of attention-grabbing art and photography on the walls, and a flower-rimmed courtyard for outdoor dining. The menu sings of the season and region with Anglesey honey-glazed chorizo, Welsh crab with spiced fries and lemon aioli, and crispy pork with mustard piccalilli, crackling and apple jam. It’s all uniformly delicious.