A country house fit for the whole family

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Jo Fernandez10 April 2012

Langton House
Darlington, County Durham

I can't honestly say that I remember my seventh birthday much but I imagine I celebrated it wearing flares with a novelty cake and a few friends jumping around to 'Tiger Feet' (from my coveted Top of the Tots Pop Party album), and that would probably have been about it. Last summer, for our daughter Maya's seventh birthday ,we decided to gather family and friends together in a country house. A far cry from my simple Seventies celebration.

The venue had to be fairly large, with space for less sociable people to slink off away from the noise of four children under 11 - Maya has three male cousins - and with a garden that could provide entertainment for the children. It also had to be near some local attractions.

Enter Langton House, in the rural conservation hamlet of Langton in the County Durham countryside.

With a large gravel drive, rolling lawns (and an over-worked trampoline), Langton House is a pair of restored 16th-century stone barns, arranged in a horseshoe-shape around a courtyard.

It has been renovated by owner Keith Sutton-Jones, who returned home with his family after living in South Korea and China, and as far as the eye can see are open fields and uninterrupted countryside.

Inside, the country kitchen had rustic oak beams, terracotta tile floors, an Aga and a large pine table that saw a lot of eating, drinking, talking and game playing.

At the kitchen's back door, the family dog, Garnet, soon became a permanent fixture. Docile and friendly, she was the perfect dog to be around children (although I feared for her stomach as they fed her bits of chorizo and various other non-canine snacks).

There was a more formal living room with the original bare stone wall furnished with lots of comfortable leather sofas, a grand piano and a scarily cream carpet.

We had a whole wing to ourselves, a suite of rooms including two bedrooms and a living room with cream sofas, cowhide rugs and an eclectic mix of art from Keith's expat years.

He commissioned local art students to copy his favourite pieces which once hung in his office over there, among them Fernando Botero's distinctively fullsome figures.

On Maya's birthday we drove into the market town of Barnard Castle, 15 minutes away. On the fringes sits the medieval ruins of the 12th century castle named after its founder, Bernard de Balliol, set high on a rock above the River Tees.

There are walks alongside the gushing river below, an adventure playground and crazy golf. History and entertainment.

We amused the locals, who were dressed normally, as we strode around in our Wellington boots stopping for pasties and nosing in an indoor car boot sale that my sister spotted. The next day we discovered Hamsterley Forest, wedged between Teesdale and Weardale in the heart of the Durham Dales.

Two thousand acres of mixed woodland sprawl along the sides of a sheltered valley with paths and adventure playgrounds. Our straggly group of adults and kids didn't allow for the bracing walk the only childless couple among us wanted, but for me it justified tea and cake in the old-fashioned café.

That night, our last, I let the youngest children bathe in the master bathroom with its tile television above a corner bathtub.

"When we come here again I want to do this," piped up Louis, luxuriating among bubbles while watching Chicken Run. The next birthday party has a lot to live up to.

Langton House, Langton, Darlington, County Durham, sleeps 14 and has availability for half-term and Easter. Three nights from £643, holidaylettings.co.uk

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