WORTLEY Hall is a stately home of distinction.

But what we hadn’t bargained for when we arrived were the decidedly strange Thursday evening guests.

We walked into a room filled with pantomime-theme characters of all description and spilling out onto the balcony was the Laughing Policeman chatting intently to the King and Queen of Hearts.

Nell Gwyn and Marie Antoinette were also there along with some Knights of St John, the Mad Hatter, serving wenches and several young ragamuffins with caps and long jackets, like those worn by Fagin’s (Oliver Twist) Gang, milling around the place. Most odd.

We had booked a meal for two and this was only our second introduction to the historic hall.

It took a while for us to find our bearings and indeed, at one stage we weren’t even quite sure what century we were in.

The characters, we were later told, were participants and guests at a fancy dress wedding that had taken place that afternoon. The evening session was just getting into full swing in the main 100-seater dining hall and spirits were high.

We sat down for a leisurely drink in the recently refurbished main bar area and were brought menus.

We chose our starter course and ordered mains.

A while later we were shown into the smaller Courtyard dining room, a hugely comfortable square room with sumptuous decorations, burgundy wallcoverings and dark oak dining tables and chairs laid out with starched white tablecloths and elaborately folded serviettes and traditionally ornate Sheffield-made cutlery.

There was a bowl of fresh roses on the table along with an extra large bowl of iced drinking water.

From the dining room we could see into the courtyard where the King and Queen, Mad Hatter, the Knights and Nell and Marie were smoking their cigarettes.

Once over the shock, our first impressions were most favourable.

Now for the food. The polite, friendly young waitress brought us bread rolls and butter and then our pan fried fillet of red mullet starters.

The fish was attractively served with stir fry baby sweetcorn and bean sprouts and a rich, wholesome sauce which complemented the full flavour of the mullet fillets.

The beans were imaginatively served with a decidedly crisp ‘bite’ to them, some might have found them a little underdone, but they were just to my taste.

Much of the produce served at Wortley Hall is grown in its celebrated Walled Garden and every ingredient prepared by the chefs is sourced locally wherever possible.

Carol and I chose our choices for the main course, ordering the supreme of chicken, served on garlic mashed potatoes with honey-glazed baby carrots.

The organic chicken breast was generous in size and subtly prepared and served up; moist and delightfully tender, it was delicious.

That evening we could have opted for starters of homemade soup of the day; supreme of pigeon with sweet potato and thyme puree; a salad of fresh watermelon with rocket and toasted cashew nuts; or warm chicken and chorizo with a micro herb salad.