The Sugar Plum Tearoom

The trains stopped calling at Rhewl long ago, but the little station found a second life. Since 2012 the Sugar Plum Tearoom has occupied the old station building outside Ruthin, serving breakfasts, light lunches and a properly done afternoon tea — scones warm, cakes baked in-house, tea in china — to walkers and locals in the Vale of Clwyd. The railway setting lends charm without gimmickry, and the Clwydian Range rises just beyond the windows. It is small, friendly and quietly excellent: the sort of tearoom people tend to keep to themselves, tucked on a back road that most traffic through Ruthin never takes.

An independent, owner-run tearoom in a converted rural railway station — characterful, long-established and genuinely tucked away.

• Coffee & Cake
• Hidden Gem
• Walkers
• Peace & Quiet