The food at the Hack and Spade is still excellent though grate expectations where somewhat dampened by the inn crowd.

WHASHTON has about 15 houses, a pub and a history. Not only was there a murder there 20 years ago, but a chapter of George Reynolds's autobiography is devoted to it.

The chapter's headed Detective Inspector Reynolds. The man who spent earlier years playing cops and robbers with the constabulary probably fancies a bit of role reversal, though it is by no means certain that the polliss is similarly inclined.

The hamlet is about six miles south-west of Scotch Corner, though maps should be consulted, skis stowed and emergency rations packed before setting forth.

Just where the road seems barely wide enough to swing a catechism, a sign - one of those from the Ford Popular generation that scored ten points in I-Spy but now would be worth 500 - announces that it narrows to eye of a needle proportions.

By the door of the Hack and Spade there's a map showing every house in Whashton. It doesn't take up much wall.

In truth, it's more restaurant than pub these days, every table with a candle burning, though Jeremy Jagger and Joanna Millar circulated residents when they arrived two and a half years ago to stress they'd be most welcome just to pop in for a pint.

It is not, for all that, the sort of place where the farm lads might drop by in muddy wellies, pinch the barmaid's bottom and spend two hours debating the ins and outs of artificial insemination.

There's a flagged floor, country magazines, a few nick-nacks and, on the wall, a hay spade presented by the folk at Whashton Lodge. Those seeking the hack might look no further than the big feller in the corner, incorrigible notebook bulging in backside pocket.

Ian Botham, Squire of Ravensworth - next village down - is a regular irregular, as are the eagerly awaited shooting parties from the Aske estate for whom lunch is a moveable feast. They'd arrived that day at 3pm, left - got shot, as it were - shortly before the first dinner guests.

The pub also has a very splendid fire, to which - grate expectations -we'd much looked forward after getting a most fearful soaking in Blackburn, Lancashire, earlier in the day.

The only problem with the fire was that a foursome was already gathered on the table closest to it, discussing how you could tell the age of a fish by the number of rings. Perhaps they'd confused birch with perch.

Jeremy asked the four if they'd like it stoking up. They said they were nearly kizzened (or words to that effect) as it was. Those not directly in the firing line felt no such rosy glow.

Like the Falkland Islands, pub fires should have an exclusion zone.

Joanna's menu, blackboards either side of the main room, is pleasantly middle of the road, reasonably priced, interesting without overstretching. That's probably why it succeeds.

A bowl of vegetable and cream cheese soup was particularly, vibrantly flavoured, as was the spicy bread which accompanied it. The Boss's salmon was no less vivid.

She'd begun with roast sweet peppers with red onions and smoked bacon, promised to hand over the smokey bacon - which long she has professed to dislike - and wolfed the lot instead.

Having thus devoured one starter she chose another - the sorbet - for pudding, a move regarded as so revolutionary by the pleasant waitress that The Boss might have discovered penicillin, or pease pudding, or something.

The soup was a hard act to follow, the nicely cooked pork fillet on mustard mash and with a mushroom and brandy sauce did it very adequately. Even the crispy leeks almost worked. The chocolate bread and butter pudding would have been better (personal taste) without the chocolate; the coffee was lukewarm.

Other main courses included chicken breast with smoked bacon and apricot stuffing baked with a leek and Stilton sauce (£9.50), steak, kidney and Guinness pie (£7.50), duck breast with red wine and an orange and cranberry sauce (£10.50).

Three courses and coffee for two just reached £37. Dig it.

* The Hack and Spade, Whashton, near Richmond. (01748) 823721. Lunch and dinner except Sunday evening and all day Monday. No smoking area, no problem for the disabled.

IF Whashton may have been put on the map at all, it was initially by Adrian and Jill Barratt who won several worthwhile awards - "worthwhile" is the key word there - before leaving the Hack in 2001.

They took over the Arden Arms at Atley Hill, ten miles east, prospered anew and then, unexpectedly, sold up.

Since September they've been running the caf at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle - five days, 4.30pm finish, others do weekends - and may already consider themselves part of the furniture. "It's totally wonderful," says Jill. "We can socialise, we can do school things with the kids, we can even eat out ourselves."

The famous old museum itself seems also to have changed since last we were there - still grand but perhaps not so grandiose, still priceless but not quite so precious. What the modernists would call user friendly.

Caf Bowes, as it's known, is next to the gift shop and approached without charge through the main entrance. Food ranges from home made cakes and biscuits up to a selection of six or seven hot dishes like smoked haddock chowder, smoked salmon risotto or gratin mushrooms.

The Boss, again in attendance, had a Caesar salad rich in salmon and prawns ("absolutely excellent" she said) followed by a faultless creme brulee. The "Bowes rarebit" with bacon and tomato chutney cost £5.50, came on a toasted doorstep and would admirably have sufficed had not Adrian Barratt made the world's best sticky toffee pudding at the Hack and Spade. He still does.

It was the Victoria and Albert which coined the marketing line about "an ace cafe with a museum attached." Another theft from the V&A, the museum piece is entirely appropriate here.

LAST week's singularly classical joke about Martini prompted another from Ian Forsyth in Durham. It was ten hours before the penny dropped - best to say it aloud.

The head of a boisterous party of ex-public schoolboys calls over the waiter and asks for a bottle of hock.

"I beg your pardon, sir?" says the waiter.

"Hock, man, hock" repeats the oaf. "You know, hic-haec-hoc."

Half an hour later there's still no wine. "Waiter, where's my damned hock?" demands the wretched customer.

"I'm sorry, sir," says the waiter, "I thought I just heard you decline hock..."

Finally and rather more simply, the bairns wondered if we knew why owls are wiser than chickens.

Ever heard of Kentucky fried owl?

Published: 02/12/2003