Well to the east, out of the valleys and into mellow pastureland, is Corton Denham, a sweet village with a square-towered church nestled against a bright green ridge. I feel as if I've walked into a painting by a completely different artist. You wouldn't call Corton Denham the suburbs, but it's only two hours from London, and compared to ­rustic Luxborough, it's almost trendy.

The Queens Arms is a yellow stone building from the 18th century, but the interior is painted in stylish sage and white. Upstairs, in my room, I punch the light switch, and the room illuminates very slowly. The room is country, with pine beds and gingham curtains, but the shower is a modern glass box raining fantastic quantities of water. The college-age pub worker who gives me my key doesn't just apologize that there's no TV in my room--he offers to wheel in a flat-screen.

TASTE OF ENGLAND Here's a sampling of the fabulous food and adorable lodging that award-winning writer Stephen Heuser discovered on his recent jaunt across England. • Launch the slide show RELATED ARTICLE • Planning a Pub Crawl

The staff wear sneakers and talk like foodies. In the dining room, appetizers arrive on smart wooden planks, and for the first time on my trip, when I look at my fellow diners, I see people wearing black. You can't imagine teddy bears in the rooms, or a bugle on the wall, but the inn displays the same mania for local produce as other gastropubs. In fact, the Queens Arms owns its pigs, and one was butchered the previous week. "We're still eating him now," my waiter says. "He's delicious."

No kidding. The humble-sounding potted pork might be the best thing I eat on the trip: Like rillettes, it's shredded meat preserved in its own fat with bits of spice and served with grilled brioche and an apple compote. Instead of beer, I have a glass of chenin blanc from South Africa.

The Queens Arms has been owned for four years by Victoria and Rupert Reeves. Victoria says that the only way to keep a pub alive is to transform it. "The days of the quiet-drinking country pub are over," she says. "The people who live round here now aren't the pint-pounding types."

Still, the pub itself pays serious tribute to beer: A memorial to recently deceased beer expert Michael Jackson hangs on a wall. And after dinner, I sit by the fireplace and have a strong, cask-conditioned ale from nearby Yeovil. One of the great benefits of staying at a pub is that you don't have to drive home.

If the Queens Arms is the offspring of modernity and tradition, The Swan Inn is more like a polished outpost of London. It's in the Surrey town of Chiddingfold, about 10 minutes' drive from a commuter rail station. The village's buildings are clad in elaborately patterned red shingles, and up the road stands the Crown, a pub so old it sheltered King Edward VI in 1552 while his 4,000 men camped on the town green.

The Swan, a renovated 19th-century inn, is a snapshot of where Britain is today: run by a British couple, Daniel and Hannah Hall, but staffed--like all of London--by a mix of Brits and Eastern Europeans, and unapologetically stylish. My room has putty-colored headboards, gauzy Roman window shades, and a bathroom floor of porcelain tiles. Clearly the place is playing to a more upscale crowd: Its two pub rooms are sleek and austere, and through a door I glimpse a dressier dining room.

I'm meeting my friend Peter for dinner, so I order a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape from the Swan's fancy wine list. We start with a soft pickled mackerel topped with julienned turnips and an airy salmon cake. Then I go for the most homey dish of my trip--bangers and mash, the classic pub dinner of sausage and mashed potatoes, which comes with competing mustards, a bright yellow English one and a grainy brown French.

The Swan is clearly beautifully done, and has Wi-Fi and air-conditioning in all the rooms. If you want a romantic getaway and things to be arranged just right, this is the place. And it's highly accommodating: Peter and I stay up talking into the night, and the Latvian night porter pours us beer until well after 3 a.m. But I'm glad to know that Brigadoon is still out there.

• The Kings Head Inn Bledington, Oxfordshire, 011-44/1608-658365, kingsheadinn.net, from $139, entrées from $20
• The Riverside Inn Aymestrey, Herefordshire, 011-44/1568-708440, theriversideinn.org, from $139, entrées from $20
• The Royal Oak Inn of Luxborough Luxborough, Somerset, 011-44/1984-640319, theroyaloakinnluxborough.co.uk, from $149, entrées from $24
• The Queens Arms Corton Denham, Somerset, 011-44/1963-220317, thequeensarms.com, from $178, entrées from $18
• The Swan Inn Chiddingfold, Surrey, 011-44/1428-682073, theswaninn.biz, from $149, entrées from $20