Boswells, Oxford’s famous department store, has a new cafe on the first floor, through the children’s toys section.

We weren’t sure if we had to wait to be seated so we hung about until eventually we were acknowledged and then had to wait while a table was prepared for us, even though we had booked an afternoon tea.

When finally seated, the adults were offered a glass of bubbly which we sadly had to turn down, and my daughter chose tea. Despite offering an extensive tea menu with some very delicious sounding teas, we were brought three pots of standard tea. Although perfectly nice, it would have been good to have had a choice.

One of our cups was stained so we had to ask for it to be swapped for a clean one and then we had to ask for milk – not a great start.

But then our cake stand arrived, heaving with good looking delicacies – cupcakes on top, a special snowman for my daughter, salted caramel brownies, macaroons, scones, with jam and clotted cream in little dishes. The sandwiches included turkey and cranberry, ham and mustard, cucumber and cream cheese – all delicious, made with the softest white bread, deliciously buttery and really good fillings.

The cupcakes were made by Happy Cakes and were pretty. The other cakes, made by Truly Scrumptious, were sensational! The salted caramel chocolate brownie was the best I have ever tasted. We were all in heaven.

My favourite flavour macaroon was pistachio. It tasted so good and I savoured every mouthful. The plain scones were very good too; lovely and yellow and made from free range eggs.

Boswells had a very good selection of cakes on offer, housed under glass domes, all looking like masterpieces. Such attention to detail. So apart from a few glitches in service the cakes were well worth the trip.

Afternoon tea costs £16.95, or £21.95 with sparkling wine.

Go to boswells.co.uk