Approaching from the east, the first thing you see in the Lincolnshire village of Winteringham, an isolated straggle of houses on the fringe of the Humber, is a sign that baldly declares 'FERRETS'. It is an unlikely milieu for an upmarket 'restaurant with rooms'. Yet there it is at the heart of the village: a slate-topped, two-storey structure, possibly a former Georgian inn, with pantiled extensions. The facilities include a helipad, but our spirits failed to soar on entering Winteringham Fields. Booked in for Friday lunch (three courses £39.95, four courses £45), my wife and I found ourselves deposited in a small, unpopulated lounge. Our refusal to take a drink before the meal was greeted with an expression of surprise ("Oh!") as if apéritifs were pretty much compulsory.

Jack Davenport and Andrew Lincoln are among the British actors wowing audiences in the US. By Sarah Hughes

This Life stars Jack Davenport and Andrew Lincoln are among a growing group of British actors who are wowing audiences in the US

Tomorrow is expected to be “exceptionally” mild, with temperatures up to 10 degrees Celsius above average for the time of year, forecasters said.

A private security firm has signed a contract to build, design and help run a police station.

A woman aged 71 and her six-year-old grandson have been found dead in a pond, police said yesterday.

Five health workers have been suspended from a North Lincolnshire children's ward following an allegation that a baby was restrained.

Five nurses have been suspended from a hospital's children's ward after claims that a baby was restrained, according to reports.

Much of eastern England remains in a state of drought, despite winter rain and snow, the Environment Agency warned yesterday.

Literary biography is haunted by the ghosts of the wives of famous writers, most of whom had a pretty rough ride. Catherine Hogarth (Dickens), Jane Wells, Nora Barnacle (Joyce), Vivienne Eliot: a literary wife's lot was rarely a happy one, and most of the time she went unnoticed. In this account of her mother Nancy's first marriage to novelist and travel writer Lawrence Durrell, Joanna Hodgkin is mindful enough of a history that places wives on the margins. This is not just a memoir of her mother. This is the history of a literary wife.

Nigel Doughty, the owner of Nottingham Forest Football Club and one of the Labour Party's largest individual donors, has died at the age of 54.

Police negotiators were last night locked in an armed stand-off with a man at a house in a small rural village.

The Government gave an assurance it was doing all it could to find a buyer for one of the country's biggest oil refineries today after it fell into administration, prompting fears of job losses and fuel shortages.

British sprinter Bernice Wilson has had a four-year ban confirmed after losing an appeal against the sanction imposed following her positive test for two anabolic steroids.