AN INSPECTOR CALLS

WARM beer and complaining about the weather might be national traits, but what do our B&Bs tell us about ourselves?

That we’re a touch wacky and keen for others to know it, perhaps. That we like to entertain and fuss over our guests.

Annie Rowley fits the bill perfectly in Number One Port Hill, a quirky, Grade II-listed, Georgian end-ofterrace (featured in Pevsner’s guide to Hertfordshire), a short walk from the centre of Hertford.

Liberace would feel at home here, with all the mirrors, candles, cherubs, fake flowers, painted wooden floors, bunches of twigs, an Eiffel Tower lamp, birdcages, glass and ceramics galore. There are three rooms on the top floor, of which room one (pictured) is easily the best, even though the bathroom is across a shared corridor. There’s a fabulous French bed.

On one bedside table are the works of E. L. James (Fifty Shades Of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, Fifty Shades Freed). ‘Do you have wi-fi?’

I ask Annie. Silly question — she’s running three businesses from here, of which one is something to do with advertising. Annie is good fun.

She follows me out of the door as I pop down to the local Thai restaurant and she scuttles off to meet friends. ‘Take a key and let yourself in. You’ll be back before me.’ I am — and, before retiring, I write a note asking if I can have breakfast at 7.30am. Would the French just let you ramble around their home like this? I’m the only guest, and sleep soundly.

Annie is bustling about when I come down in the morning. Every surface in the dining room is taken up with something or other.

But it’s dainty, too, with proper butter knives, pretty cups and saucers — the sort of get-up you laid on in the old days when the vicar was popping in for tea and needed to be impressed. I am impressed.

A great British tradition is alive and well at Number One Port Hill.