The Wallace Collection Cafe, London W.1.

How about afternoon tea in the colonnaded enclosed courtyard of a stately home?  With a magnificent collection of treasures inside the house – paintings, Sevres porcelain, clocks, furniture and armour:  the Wallace Collection.   The house is open free to the public and is just minutes behind Oxford Street on Manchester Square, with  Marylebone High Street and  its great shops just around the corner.  At weekends there are free guided tours of the house, and  in addition to the permanent collection there are regular exhibitions in the house, which are always quite small but far from run of the mill. The Cafe is open for lunch and dinner, but my favourite is tea-time.  A full traditional English tea, with finger sandwiches, scones with raspberry jam and clotted cream,  and cakes – with the tea of your choice.  Served on wonderful tiered cake plates just as you remember from your childhood .  And best of all the prices have remained reasonable – £17.50 for the full tea, with various other permutations if the complete tea is too much for you.  Which, compared with the £40 per tea now being charged by many of the better hotels, is a steal – everything being relative!! They also have a well stocked bar, and delicious hot chocolate.