Judges Court is a beautiful small hotel that is also an organic farm set in orchards and wheat fields, in the Kangra Valley, a rocky, rolling place of high speed rivers and manicured tea estates

The Kangra Valley is a bit of a secret. It is in the foothills of the Himalayas, just where the plains run out on the edge of the Punjab. It is a rocky, rolling place of high-speed rivers and manicured tea estates. Secret part two is a bit of a surprise in India: a beautiful small hotel that is also an organic farm set in orchards and wheat fields.

A man called Sir Jai Lal lived in a manor house called The Judges Court, built in recognition of Sir Jai being the first Indian High Court Judge of the Undivided Punjab to be knighted by the British, when the Raj still roared. The Judge’s grandson decided on a labour of love; to restore the quietly crumbling house and grounds and, to defray some of the costs, to open it up as a small hotel.

There is an overnight train that goes from the stench of Delhi right into the middle of nowhere about an hour from the hotel. When the train rolled in at about breakfast time a jeep arrived from The Judge’s Court and there was a thermos of hot, sweet tea flavoured with cardamom to cut the morning cool of the hills. A cross-country drive and there it was, just on the brow of a hill, in all its pavilioned, pillared splendour. The architecture and decor are a mixture of North Indian and colonial with a bit of Tuscany and Umbria thrown in among the verandas and wicker chairs.

From the casement window of the bedroom I looked out over a profoundly rural scene. Two bullocks pulled a wooden plough, the old cowherd behind with banana bandy legs. A girl, fully veiled under dark red chiffon, made chapatis over an open fire under a grape vine. The orchard has fourteen different kinds of fruit including peaches, persimmons, plums and papaya and that is just the alliteration section. In the village beyond the grounds, very small donkeys carry loads of old bricks (The success of The Judge’s Court has ignited a restoration rush); very out of place young men in blue jeans pretend not to be watching the girls in their bright saris; very old men sit around the peepul tree and stare long and hard at the pretty girls because wrinkly old age means you can get away with that kind of thing.

As it got dark a flutist from the village played on the lawn as we were served drinks and offered bits of warm chapati with fresh mint and green mango chutney. The flute player’s small son danced unselfconsciously as his father played. The fish that we ate was from the river, the okra, beans and aubergine from the garden, the cream of the ice cream from the mascara-lashed jersey crossbreeds in the dairy and the plum compote from the orchard. The guard dogs howled occasionally to keep the wild boar in the woods on their mettle.

Originally published on Travel Intelligence