A trip to the oldest house in a North-East town, now a top-class restaurant, proved a real winter warmer... and it wasn't even all down to the real ale.

IMAGINE this: a bone chilling night, pavement like a Siberian skating rink, frost sparkling treacherously on the tranquil road outside.

Push open the restaurant door, however, and at once a handsome log fire is visible beneath a low beamed ceiling. The music machine quietly plays Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring; the charming waitress, tappy-lappy down the stairs, takes the coats, offers fireside chairs and announces - glory upon glory - that they have real ale.

Winter Nights from Castle Eden Brewery may not necessarily be the joy of man's desiring, but it is a perfectly pleasant beer and altogether more attractive than any of the pasteurised alternatives.

Barely two minutes had passed since we came in from the cold. As two-year-old Pu-Wi may have observed when becoming Emperor of China in 1908, it was a very canny start.

The downstairs reception room at Blagraves House in Barnard Castle is so comfortably and utterly agreeable, in fact, that the temptation was to remain in situ, ask for a couple of trays and have a television dinner without the distraction of a television set.

The good news was that a no less magnificent fire blazed upstairs. It was all immensely civilised.

Blagraves is the oldest house in Barney, built around 1483 and abounding in character. Cromwell stayed there and thought better of Barnard Castle for the hospitality, Wesley's followers met secretly in the attic. In Elizabethan times it was The Boar's Head, later The Shoulder of Mutton though known locally (for reasons which may only be imagined) as the Bucket of Blood.

Long derelict, it was restored 30 years ago by restaurateurs Neil and Josie Davidson, who ran it for 13 years and won enthusiastic Good Food Guide entries. Ken and Elizabeth Marley took over 14 years ago.

We'd once had Sunday lunch, when the bairn who is now 6ft 5ins - and built, as they say, commensurately - was small enough to have to sit on a pile of telephone directories and the waitress enquired if "Sir" would like cauliflower.

"Yeuch," replied Sir, ungraciously.

The particular spur for dining last Wednesday was a report a few days earlier that Oldfields restaurant in the town is to close.

Barnard Castle, said Bill Oldfield - hoping to become the best known of that clan since him with the Tubular Bells - was more of a tea and teacakes place.

Ken Marley said diplomatically that he didn't think he agreed.

Though just seven others ate last Wednesday, there had been few quieter nights in the previous 18 months. "Going exceptionally well," said Ken, and richly it deserves to.

There are just eight tables, maximum 24 covers, attentive service. A family group of five included a young man of eight or so who not only knew the complete works of Sophie the Snail (whoever she is) but the meaning of sophistry, too. Sophistry is a different specious entirely.

Downstairs there'd been a complimentary cheese and apple tart, piping from the oven. Upstairs yet greater delights awaited.

It should be made clear, however, that Blagraves House is sadly out of bounds to the disabled and that warning those over six feet tall to mind their heads might be extended downwards to the larynx.

From Tuesday to Friday, we later learned, there's a £15.95 set menu, though it wasn't offered to us.

With 20 minutes warning so that it might freshly be prepared, The Boss began with a fish tart - "delicious, melt-in-the-mouth pastry, vividly rich sauce."

A rough and gamey rabbit terrine was served with olives and capers and accompanied (as such things should be) by another pint of beer. Oh those Winter Nights, as Ms Olivia Newton John might almost have observed.

Main courses are unfussy, locally sourced, served on this occasion with caramelised red cabbage, lovely little garlic potatoes, carrots and courgettes.

The Boss had roast monkfish with tomatoes and a slightly bland tapenade; perfectly tender duck breast might again have been enhanced by a more memorable sauce (which, translated, means we can't remember what it was.)

Puddings, however - wonderfully sybaritic lemon posset, aromatic coffee creme brulee - returned to the highest standard.

The bill without drinks was about £40, the evening warming in every sense. You couldn't beat it for teacakes.

* Blagraves House, The Bank, Barnard Castle (01833 637688.) Open Tuesday to Saturday evenings from 7pm. Banqueting room available for special occasions. Not suitable for the disabled.

NOW for a fearful confession: about ten minutes before falling into Blagraves' happy embrace, we'd eaten fish and chips at Maggie's Plaice, also in Barnard Castle.

It's in Galgate, on the way in from Darlington, and Doug Porterhouse in Ferryhill was so moved by Maggie's that he sent a long poem which ended:

The fish are large and succulent

The batter can't be beaten;

And the chips you'll agree, if you go and see,

Are the best you've ever eaten.

For some reason Doug didn't mention the pea fritters, sold for 30p. Perhaps they're a Barney delicacy, perhaps there's not much rhymes with fritter.

The bard was spot on, though about the restaurant and takeway run by Maggie and Peter Gibson. Fish and chips (£2.80) were excellent, the batter fresh and crisp - though they appeared about to close - and the chips as firm and tasty as any in memory.

For fear of spoiling another good thing, most of them went into a municipal wastepaper bin. They deserved a much better ending.

NICE coal fire at the Mill Race in Wolsingham, too, huge lunch time meals - corned beef pie £5.05, nice chips - and four hand pumps. Whether they should sell something called "Autumn ale" in mid-January leaves it liable to seasonally affected disorder.

A LETTER from Mr R McKendrick in Hurworth Place, near Darlington, addresses "those nasty little grey-brown things they call potatoes."

He's 76 and was brought up on a farm. "I feel insulted to be offered what I consider pig taties, which used to be unsaleable and were boiled up to mix with pig and poultry feed, skins and all.

"In Lincolnshire I've seen tractor loads dumped behind hedges to rot. There must be nearly 20 ways of serving the old spud, all of them attractive. Is it only me who finds this sort so disgusting? I wonder what your readers think."

They may care to let us know.

...and finally, the bairns wondered if we knew what squeaks when cold milk's poured over them.

Mice crispies, of course.