Old-style house parties, charades and all, are still in vogue and earning one north Herefordshire couple a crumb or two, I am pleased to report.

I am sitting in front of the warming Aga in Carolyn Chesshire's kitchen at Lower Buckton House, a rather upmarket version of a B & B, in the remote hamlet of Buckton, between Leintwardine and Wigmore.

This is Mortimer Country at its very best and an idyll for those city dwellers seeking to experience the silence of the countryside.

Too far off the beaten track to rely on passing tourists seeking a night's shelter, Carolyn and husband Henry when they moved into the red brick Georgian farmhouse in 2001, needed to be more entrepreneurial to fill their three guest bedrooms.

The house party theme is just one of their innovations, alongside bring your own' horse riding holidays, food safaris', wine appreciation weekends and cookery courses.

But all guests are assured of one thing - the best breakfast they have ever eaten! For two years running, Carolyn has won the Breakfast of the Year award in the Flavours of Herefordshire competition. Part of her latest prize from the category sponsor, the British Pig Executive, was a sausage making machine and a course in sausage making delivered by an expert.

Her recipe for her first attempt at homemade sausages included pork, perry, pear and ginger.

So, what makes a perfect, award-winning breakfast?

Breakfast is served Henry and Carolyn Chesshire in the dining room.

First, it is necessary to understand Carolyn's ethos as a natural, self-taught cook. Her kitchen, she tells me, is a supermarket-free zone'.

More importantly, she is a fully paid-up member of the Slow Food Movement, one of whose aims is 3 2 to appreciate and promote locally produced food. And that's what you get when you sit down to eat at Lower Buckton House - all cooked or grilled in the Aga. Not a microwave or greasy frying pan are in sight. Even her cats are given local food.

Carolyn runs through a typical breakfast menu. To start, her own mixed muesli, yoghurts from the Dairy House, Weobley, fresh apple juice from Tickmore Farm, Brimfield, poached fresh rhubarb and ginger, porridge drizzled with her own quince syrup.

This is followed by a country-style breakfast of home-cured bacon and sausages from Griffiths the Leintwardine butcher, a large flat mushroom with a dab of butter and thyme or sage, baked not fried, locally grown baked tomatoes garnished with basil, poached or scrambled eggs or a kedgeree made with trout from the Teme.

To finish - local bread, butter and honey or some of her homemade lemon curd. Oh, and it's proper tea in the pot. None of that tea bag nonsense.

"Most of our guests live hectic city lives, with no time to sit down and enjoy a leisurely country-style breakfast so, during their stay, we make it a very special treat and also introduce them to the goodness and flavour of locally grown food," explained Carolyn, herself a fervent disciple of the Flavours of Herefordshire campaign.

What brought them into the hospitality business?

"We wanted something we could do together and combining my love of cooking with Henry's natural flair as a genial host seemed the perfect answer," is her reply.

Both grew up in the region, Henry the son of a Knighton GP and Carolyn as a pony-riding youngster in Ludlow where her first job was in one of the town's hotels.

Their own social experiences among the local hunting crowd probably gave rise to the idea for a house party arm to the business which has proved so popular. Catering for groups of six to 20 in size, Carolyn lays on a gastronomic feast, all locally sourced of course, and makes good use of locally-caught game, pheasant and venison while Henry serves and fills wine glasses on a 12ft-long oak dining table he made himself.

He is also a keen gardener, providing the kitchen with all its seasonal vegetables and herbs.

Retiring to the drawing room, lined with portraits of Henry's ancestors, including a couple of vicars, the guests round off the evening entertaining themselves as was customary before the arrival of television.

Murder mystery evenings are popular, as are charades, while some parties favour a musical theme.

On the morning that we met, Carolyn had taken a booking from a London gentleman planning his 40th birthday.

Carolyn is a skilled horsewoman, with her own cob in the paddock, and this experience has been put to good use with the introduction of the novel idea of inviting equestrian guests to bring along their own horse and join her on escorted riding trips through the magnificent and historic Mortimer Country. It was here, in 1463, that Edward Mortimer won a great battle in the War of the Roses and, later, became King Edward IV.

The Harleys of nearby Brampton Bryan have held the now ruined castle and most of the land in these parts for centuries, siding with Cromwell in the Civil War.

Apparently, Royalists from Ludlow Castle, on a raid in 1643, blew up the corn mill which was part of the original farmhouse at Lower Buckton.

It was later rebuilt and continued milling until the 1940s. It stands at the bottom of the garden with the leet, or mill race, running from the nearby River Teme adding to visitors' country living experience.

Yet another venture, which helps boost the region's vital tourism trade, is Carolyn's food safaris', in which visitors are taken to explore food and drink artisans at work and are given the opportunity to sample their fare.

"For many it will be the first opportunity to see real food being made," she said.

Carolyn has also turned her natural flair for country cooking into an earning asset by offering cookery courses with a difference.

She takes her students to a farmer's market to buy whatever is in season and then brings it all back to the kitchen at Lower Buckton to create recipes and prepare a meal.

She observes: "The nation's new interest in food has created a major social change.

"Previously, no-one at the dinner table talked about the food they were eating, but now, discussing all aspects of a meal, where the food came from, how it was cooked and the style of wine, is part of the conviviality of the occasion."

Carolyn's guests will certainly have plenty to talk about.

3:29pm Tuesday 1st April 2008

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