Trade Secrets - A Touch of Class - Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon, Wales

Mark Taylor talks to Charles Inkin, proprietor of the Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon, Wales, about the attention to detail at his pub

Bar

The bar is made of three-inch thick black slate which came from an old dairy in Shropshire. It was part of one of the partitions that separated the cows when they were being milked. I brought a load of it back and thought it would be perfect for the bar. It adds to the general rustic feel of the place.

Bedrooms

I really like the simplicity and comfort of the bedrooms we have at the pub. I picked up a lot of furniture in local antique shops. I'm lethal when I go out buying furniture because I always end up spending too much so I have to restrict myself to a couple of trips a year!

The four-poster bed is a genuine antique. It comes from India and was made in the 1860s for British army officers in the Raj period. It cost about £800 from a place in Manchester. I got it purely by chance because I had stopped off at a pub on the way to Manchester and spotted that the pub had lots of great furniture. I got the name of the people who supplied the landlord and went straight to this place, where they had an entire basement stocked with the stuff. I came straight back to the Griffin to measure the rooms and bought a few pieces. We sent a horsebox up to Manchester to pick everything up.

Our bedrooms are all designed with natural colours and are quite simply furnished, just to create a relaxed, homely feel. The colours are soothing, rather than being over the top

Light fittings

These wall light fittings were made by a local woman who specialises in ironmongery. They're a nice shape and, combined with the candles, help to create a really nice atmosphere in the evening.

Private dining

Although people can eat wherever they like at the pub, we have found that the private dining room next to the bar has proved very popular with larger parties of guests. What I love is having a small party with about 14 people in the back room, with the big fireplace and candles going. It's very intimate and relaxed.

By day, we use it as a makeshift office - it's basically the Felin Fach Griffin HQ.

Napkins

We try to keep very simple lines and atural colours in the design of the pub and I like these oatmeal cotton napkins simply because they're not white linen. I hate white, it's totally impractical and impossible to keep clean. It is also intentional that we never put white linen tablecloths on the tables.

Why do you need to eat off white linen tablecloths in a pub? If you were eating in a three-star Michelin restaurant, you might expect it, but not in a country pub.

Aga

The old Aga in the breakfast room was already here when we took over the pub so we just had it converted to oil from solid fuel. It now forms an important feature of the pub.

We have huge pots of stocks bubbling away on it all the time. Breakfast is always served in that room and people can make their toast on it if they like. We don't actually cook breakfast on the Aga,although there's a bit of a myth that we do. Occasionally, if it's just two people, then I might cook scrambled eggs on it and serve it straight at the table.

The Aga is also very useful for ironing our cotton napkins. We launder them, fold them up, put them on the Aga and it does all the ironing for us!

Wine rack

The wine rack is close to the Aga, but it's perfect because it keeps the red wines at just the right temperature, not too warm and not too cold. Most of our Burgundies are in the cellar, but you can open a bottle of claret that has been in the rack by the Aga and within half an hour, it's perfect to drink.

The iron wine rack was designed by a local woman.

Leather sofas

Because we are located close to the Brecon Beacons, we get a lot of walkers and shooting parties staying with us. This means that we get a lot of tired and cold people arriving back in the afternoon or early evening and everyone makes a beeline for the three leather sofas by the two huge fireplaces in the bar. The sofas were just reject stock from a shop nearby in Brecon.

This place was derelict when I took it over so when I was designing it, I just chose the same stuff that I would buy to furnish my own home really - if I had the money! I wanted to create a rustic feel, using lots of wood and natural colours. People always say that it feels like staying at somebody's house, which is an atmosphere I always wanted to create.

Curtains

Most of our curtains are made from traditional handmade Welsh blankets and they were all made locally. We didn't want to have shutters, and we were going to use these blankets as throws, but because we're quite exposed to the elements, we needed something to keep out the cold. These are made from such thick material, they keep the place very warm in winter.

Paintings

A lot of the paintings in the restaurant are by a very good local artist called Eugene Fisk. He's been a specialist in portraits for the last 10 years, including a year recording personalities of the Welsh National Opera. His other work includes portraits of Miranda Richardson, Sir John Harvey Jones, Sir Roy Strong and Lisa Gasteen.

A selection of his work is always on show at the Kilvert Gallery in Clyro, near Hay on Wye, Herefordshire, where he has his studio. We had a wealthy Austrian guy staying here last night. When he left this morning, he said he wanted to buy one of the paintings from us!

We also have a lot of framed black and white photographs of local scenes,including cattle at Hay-on-Wye market, taken by photojournalist Victoria Upton, and some striking photographs of rock formations and beaches taken by Rosanna Westwood.