Abutting the Roman city walls, this style-savvy red brick old coaching inn (Young’s Brewery) has a lively atmosphere.

A stone’s throw from the River Exe, this characterful property with a rich history has welcomed the weary since the 1720s.

‘The food is, of course, the highlight, closely followed by the extremely comfortable room, lovely surroundings and professional, friendly service.’

‘A superb hotel,’ reports a trusted reader in 2019, of Robin Hutson’s Elizabethan manor at the end of a mile-long drive.

Buried deep in the countryside, Sue Burdge’s inn is so much the model of an olde worlde Devon pub that it ‘could have been created by a set designer’.

Elizabeth Barrett (not yet Browning) would have known this ‘charming, traditional' white stucco seafront hotel when she moved to Sidmouth in 1832 for the balmy climate.

Possibly the oldest inn in England, with a medieval wooden window pre-dating glass, this thatched village pub in the Teign valley is ‘a gem’.

Cosy hotel or traditional pub? This 14th-century thatched inn offers the best of both, and will certainly 'tempt us from London again', says a recent visitor.

At the centre of a row of quarrymen’s cottages, built in 1820 of the same local granite, this ‘charming hotel’ is true to its motto, ‘steadfastly traditional’. It is in the small village of Haytor Vale, ‘just below the famous Haytor rocks’ on the south-eastern edge of Dartmoor.

‘This place has a lot going for it.' A trusted reader commends this country house hotel and spa, ‘beautifully located’, on the edge of Dartmoor national park.