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Everyone knows you can’t be in two places at once. Yet, as I sleepily stretched out to the corners of the four-poster bed, I wondered if I’d achieved the impossible. Outside the window was a postcard-perfect English village, but the voices drifting up from the courtyard below were unmistakably French. So not only was I in two different places, I seemed to be in two different countries as well.

This feeling will be familiar to anyone who’s ever stayed or eaten at The Great House in Lavenham, Suffolk. The tiny hotel, technically a "restaurant with rooms" as it has only five of them, is a haven of oak-beamed loveliness without an ounce of tweeness to spoil it. You don’t need those fake 'olde Englishe' touches when you’ve got the real thing, and the two 14th- and 15th-century half-timbered buildings that make up the hotel are certainly that behind their Georgian facade. The Gallic flavour comes from owners Régis and Martine Crépy -- along with their French staff -- who arrived 15 years ago and could never bring themselves to leave.

When you see The Great House’s setting, this isn’t surprising. Lavenham is one of England’s most inspiring villages, with whole streets and rows of gloriously crooked half-timbered houses built at the height of its prosperity more than 500 years ago. Everywhere you look there are extravagant amounts of bleached wood framing plaster painted in sugar-puff colours or molded into fashionable motifs. It’s a perfect example of a late medieval town, though luckily without the throat-gripping smells of the cloth trade that made it rich.

I hired an audio tour from the pharmacy on the High Street and strolled the narrow lanes, learning about the architecture and history of this remarkable place on the way. When the tape ran out, I just ambled around and soaked up the atmosphere, getting in a little lazy window-shopping at the same time. For a change of scene, I carried on to the edge of the village. Suddenly, without warning, the houses ended and I was plunged in the Suffolk countryside that inspired Constable. It could hardly have been more English.

Heading back into Lavenham, however, my thoughts turned to a more indulgent slice of English tradition: afternoon tea. On the High Street, Tickle Manor Tea Rooms -- a big name for a tiny place-- had tea in plump brown pots, and home-made cakes such as sticky warm gingerbread, and crumbly scones with jam and cream. I sipped and nibbled, and read about Mr. Tickle, who used to live here and was apparently the spitting image of Oliver Cromwell.

Once back on Market Place -- sadly no longer used for its original purpose -- I pushed open the door to The Great House, stepped over the threshold and made the shortest Channel crossing ever. Everything was French again, from the accents of the staff to the conversation of several of the guests and, when the time came, the food -- though, luckily, not the menu.

Dinner was seriously good, but far from solemn, with none of that hushed primness that spoils many smart country restaurants. Everyone was too busy sighing happily over Enrique Bilbault’s cooking or raving about the groaning cheese trolley, Régis’s pride and joy which he stocks on monthly trips to the Paris markets. As for me, I suddenly seemed to be in three places at once: England, France and, very nearly, heaven.

The Great House, Market Place, Lavenham, Suffolk CO10 9QZ (01787 247431).

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