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Pudding. It's just such a silly, old-fashioned word. Unlike the North American "dessert," "pudding" - for both a steamed or baked cake and for the sweet that ends a meal - is as cheerful, and as English, as you can get.

So is the tiny Three Ways House Hotel in Mickleton, in the rolling hills of the Cotswolds region outside London. Situated between lush fields and dappled woods, carpeted in bluebells and crossed with public walking paths, it's a perfectly English setting for a holiday.

And quirky too. Where else in the world do you find a club dedicated to the weekly consumption of old-fashioned puddings, after a special light dinner designed for the very purpose of wallowing in gut-busting, custard-slathered sweets?

"We inherited the Pudding Club, but there's always been a heritage of eating pudding in England," says Peter Henderson, who co-owns the hotel, a small limestone building that dates back to 1871. Today, the hotel has seven pudding-themed rooms - individual studies in trompe l'oeil and eccentric visual puns. The Syrup Sponge room is awash in golden syrupy satins, with a golden valance dripping over the bed, a vintage Lyle's golden syrup poster on the wall and a stuffed lion (from the classic label) lounging among the pillows on the bed.

Pudding Club meetings have been a staple at the hotel every Friday night for more than 20 years - ever since a group of locals, concerned that traditional British desserts were being replaced by modern imports such as tiramisu and cheesecake, decided to revive their favourite childhood puds. It's a slow food revolt British-style, a backlash to the encroachment of "nouvelle cuisine" into the world of hearty English country cooking. Each week, the Pudding Club serves up seven traditional puddings from its repertoire of 113 old-fashioned recipes, and pudding heads arrive from far and wide for a fix.

Luckily, it is located near the famed Cotswold Way national walking trail and makes a great base for the walking weekends offered here to help balance the caloric equation.

Calories are never mentioned, but the bottom line for so much stodgy, sweet, steamed indulgence is surely staggering. Just consider the classic "syrup sponge" recipe - a mixture of eggs, flour and sugar, steamed in a pudding bowl and doused in Lyle's syrup and lashings of Bird's custard. Variations range from Christmas pudding, studded with mixed dried fruit and jam roly poly, to citrusy marmalade pudding, spotted dick (or "dog" in polite company) with raisins, squidgy chocolate pud, and gooey sticky toffee pudding with dates and caramel sauce.

Puddings truly are a British custom with a long history. According to Henderson, the boozy Christmas plum pudding nearly died out in the 17th century (banned by Puritans as too decadent), but was reintroduced by King George in 1714, unleashing what might be described as a pudding invasion. Victorians popularized fruity Prince Albert (a.k.a. Christmas) puddings, icy maraschino-studded Nesselrode and steamy sticky toffee puddings, and they became staples across the Commonwealth, from Jamaica to Hong Kong to Canada.

Any Brit of a certain vintage remembers pudding as the one bright spot in an otherwise dreadful diet. "When I was a schoolboy, we had a meal and a hot pudding at least once a day," Henderson says as we work our way through several smallish - though seriously filling - servings. "Pudding was part of our staple diet until convenience foods and desserts like frozen cheesecakes from factories came along."

But thanks to the Pudding Club, and its 1,000-plus members, the British pudding tradition is flourishing in the Cotswolds. Henderson says the weekly pudding feasts draw at least 70 sweet-lovers every Friday night, and spaces fill up fast.

The local "Pudding Queen" is Sheila Vincent, the hotel's pudding maker. She makes enough of each simple dessert so that everyone can have their fill, Henderson says, but there are rules. You must clean up one pudding before adding the next to your bowl. Only after you've eaten all seven is it cricket to tuck into seconds.

The chefs parade the puddings through the dining room every 15 minutes, to rowdy whoops and cheers, and at the end of the night there's a vote for the best of the bunch.

"It's not a race - it's a marathon," says Henderson, spooning slowly and steadily from one pudding to the next, while the rest of us sit uncomfortably stuffed, our bowls still brimming.

It's definitely a challenge for the uninitiated to consume seven puddings in one go. Even after a light meal of smoked salmon and greens, I had difficulty with three scoops of the heavy steamed desserts floating in a sea of custard. But serious pudding aficionados attend regularly - the record is 20 portions of pudding in one sitting, set by a young male diner last June.

The Three Ways House Hotel also has a lovely modern restaurant serving creative cuisine featuring ingredients from local purveyors - but it's clear that pudding is a big part of their business. Even on non-Pudding Club days, at least three puddings are on the menu, and Sunday lunch always features a special pudding buffet.

"Our mission here is to preserve the heritage of the traditional English pudding," Henderson says. And, by George, I think he's got it!

If you go

Getting there

Mickleton is a 90-minute drive northeast of London.

Where to stay

Three Ways House Hotel,

Mickleton; 44 0 1386 438 429; http://www.puddingclub.com. Rates range from about $150 for a single room to $395 for a superior room.

Pudding club deals

You don't need to be a Pudding Club member to attend Friday night meetings - complete with seven puddings and dinner for about $55 a person.

A two-night package, including two places at the Pudding Club, a dinner in the hotel restaurant and breakfast, is about $370 including a standard room. Regular Cotswold Walking Weekends include a Pudding Club meeting, followed by two 14- to 22-kilometre guided walks, dinner and accommodation starting at about $385.

What to do

The hotel is four kilometres from Chipping Campden, starting point for the Cotswold Way national walking trail (http://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/cotswold).