"Maybe it’s the warm fire place in reception. Maybe it’s the warren of bedrooms up five creaking staircases or the excellent menu created by chef Wojciech Wolf Chodurski. Or maybe it’s really the bar with over 300 different gins on display and another hundred tucked away around the hotel, but I’m always happy to head to The Feathers in Woodstock.

This is a Cotswold coral reef of a hotel made up of several old, overlapping buildings, including a former draper’s shop and a public reading room. It only opened as a hotel in the 1960s when doorways were knocked through to connect those four buildings (but all the staircases were retained). The internal decoration has made much of the contrast between old dark wood and lime green and pink furnishings. In fact there is a lot of pink in some surprising places. One night leaving the gin bar, where the charming and extremely knowledgeable Octavian had introduced me to three new distillations, I thought I saw six illuminated pink pigeons over one of the stairwells. When I went back the next morning to check this was not an hallucination, yes there they were there.

There is also a display of piled up pink Victorian teacups in the dining room that looks like it might crash down at any moment Mad Hatter-like (fortunately it turns out they are glued together) and some attractive modern art.

The bedrooms are cozy with low ceilings, the occasional antique illuminated in a pool of light and pink mohair throws on the beds. It has to be said these rooms are mostly quite dark - which means you may miss the odd step coming out of the bathroom – but they exude a wonderful sense of authenticity. Generations have slept here before you (and missed their footing occasionally). Beyond the hotel, Woodstock is a typical Cotswold village squeezed in between the stentorian splendour of Blenheim Palace and the A44. I always feel that if Blenheim ever breathed out one morning or turned over in its sleep it would pitch the whole of Woodstock into the middle of the road. There are plenty of shops for weekend browsing: an independent bookstore, an Aga kitchen shop, a place selling- and fitting - expensive seagrass carpets and several art galleries. But save your money for dinner because chef Wojciech has created an excellent menu that caters equally well for carnivores, pescatarians and vegetarians. And Octavian is always on hand to advise quietly about the best wines – or gins - to match your meal."

"The Gin Bar at the Feathers in rural Woodstock is one of the most remarkable hotel bars you’ll come across in England. Behind a small counter, just long enough for four or five barflies to ensconce themselves, are stacked some of the 447 gins that the hotel offers. And in case you wonder if any hotel offers more, Dominique the manager has posted a certificate from the Guinness Book of Records to confirm that, yes this is gin nirvana.

The bar is manned by Octavian from Romania who knows his spirits (although he does complain that every time he goes away for a few days Dominique finds more gins for him to master). Octavian also has a wide range of tonics at his disposal and a tray of garnishes. Each G&T is constructed out of these three elements and served in a round bowl glass with lots of ice.

If you’re not sure which gin you want to take to your comfy corner of this three-room bar, Octavian offers a gin-tasting experience for £35 pp where he will tempt you with sniffs from various bottles until he works out which gins you will like. Each is then prepared the way he thinks works best. This is a master craftsman at work. Octavian also sends handcrafted G&Ts up to bedrooms as room service, and if you wish he will pair each course of your dinner that night with a gin of his own choosing.

Upstairs the Feathers is a warren of corridors as a result of it being a composite of several ancient Cotswold stone buildings. Bedrooms are cozy with low beams, splashes of colour in amidst the calm neutral interiors, bright white bathrooms, shaggy throws and old furniture: ideal places to fall asleep after Octavian’s G&T extravaganzas below."

"The Oxford Chamber Music Festival

It’s apt that Oxford should stage an annual Chamber Music Festival as it has some of the best chamber music venues in the country. According to an Oxford diarist it was in the Sheldonian Theatre that Handel “and his lousy crew of foreign fiddlers” performed in 1733 and Haydn performed in the Holywell Music Room when he visited in 1791.

This wooden chapel-like building was constructed in 1742, making it the oldest freestanding music room in Europe. Today it is home to the Oxford Chamber Festival that runs from 27 September – 1 October this year, but there will also be bigger events at the Sheldonian Theatre with celebrity percussionist Evelyn Glennie pulling in the crowds. Music featured at both venues - and a few of Oxford’s churches and chapels - include pieces by Britten, Elgar, Schubert, Bach and Messiaen as well as new works by the festival’s Composer in Residence, P?teris Vasks from Latvia.

For somewhere to stay during the festival try the lovely Feathers Hotel in the Cotswold village of Woodstock which is just ten miles outside the city centre . Take the S3 bus route if you don’t want to get snarled up by Oxford’s parking problems. The hotel has a famous gin bar containing over 400 different distillations and hosts innovatory gin dinners that imaginatively match food and gin.

The Feather is a redbrick former townhouse with 21 colourful bedrooms up a warren of old staircases. There’s also an attractive inner terrace for summer dining. By October though you’ll probably want to eat inside where Dominic Chapman (from BBC’s Great British Menu) is executive chef. Look out for the pile of teacups in the dining room like something out of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. And, when you return from an evening of excellent chamber music, you really must call in at the bar for a gin nightcap or two. See if you can spot the certificate from the Guiness Book of Records confirming the maximum number of gin bottles in any British bar."