Our £97 pub bill was hard to stomach inside Greater Manchester's idyllic hidden village

If you live in or around Bolton you'd have heard of the Last Drop Village.

It's somewhere I'd heard mentioned quite frequently over the years - mostly people attending weddings there - but I'd never actually been.

It's not officially a village in local authority terms and it's pretty hidden away, tucked behind a typical housing estate in Bromley Cross, near Turton.

A collection of old farmhouses and farm buildings were restored in the 1960s and transformed into what is now a pub, restaurant, bistro, craft shops, hotel and conference centre.

Deciding to call in at the Drop Inn on a dark Wednesday evening in February, stepping inside the village felt like entering another world.

Turning into The Market Place we were met with a rather old fashioned town square with a large central stone water fountain in the middle, surrounded by a gallery and toy shop on one side and a tea shop and pub on the other.

Further down there's a range of shops with everything from a hair salon and bridal boutique to a place to paint pottery.

As well as the pub and Village Tea Shop, where there's plenty of outdoor seating, the village has a separate Courtyard Restaurant and Bar.

While some visitors call here just for the day, there's plenty of room to stay over, with a range of accommodation types inside the hotel and a Village Spa offering treatments and spa days.

The Drop Inn was pretty quiet when we first arrived, but soon began to fill up, with a few groups gathering at tables to watch the live football.

It's far from a rowdy football pub though and the kids loved having a pool table, darts and table football on hand to keep them entertained while we waited for food.

At £17.95 for fish and chips and around the same for the Roast of the Day,