‘There is much to like and laugh about’ at this utterly transformed Grade I listed Elizabethan manor house, in a ‘glorious setting’ in the Otter valley.

In a valley on the north Exmoor coast, Mark and Pat Cowell’s ‘friendly, unpretentious' hotel stands at the end of a long private drive ‘close to wonderful walks and fabulous scenery’.

‘As delightful as ever’, reports a trusted Guide correspondent in 2017, of Adam Fox-Edwards’s former coaching inn–turned–sporting hotel near Dartmoor.

‘We will return,’ vowed regular Guide correspondents after a stay at Chris Daly’s 18th-century manor at the heart of Dartmoor – and so they have, to find it, in 2017, as ‘friendly and laid-back’ as ever.

‘In an utterly peaceful valley, Richard Johnston’s quirky B&B is a cross between a 1930s rural escape and an eccentric aristocrat’s home, with a bit of adventure at every turn, and lots to keep you entertained.’

‘We cannot fault The Henley – it is one of the best traditions of our lives,’ write regular visitors to Martyn Scarterfield and Petra Lampe’s Edwardian holiday cottage, from which a cliff path leads to the beach.

In springtime, wisteria festoons Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s 18th-century manor house, an ‘oasis of tranquillity’ set amid orchards and woodlands in the Taw valley.

Rock-solid traditional values win praise for the Graves family’s late Georgian village inn, at the centre of a terrace of cottages on the edge of Dartmoor.

‘Crumbly scones’ make this chic, river-facing hotel ‘probably the best tea place in town’, but there’s much more for its fans to enjoy: ‘A lovely setting, good food and well-appointed accommodation’.

Olga Polizzi’s countryside retreat, at its origin a Regency fishing lodge created for the Duchess of Bedford, is today an ‘unpretentious, wholly enjoyable’ hotel ‘decorated with charm and taste’.

‘It’s a pleasure to stay here.’ In a ‘beautiful location with stunning views of Hay Tor and Dartmoor’, the Hassell family’s ‘delightful’ hotel has ‘a lot going for it’: ‘friendly, helpful and efficient staff’; ‘good-quality food’; the ‘quiet surroundings’.

‘Such a relaxed, friendly place’, Sue Burdge’s thatch-roofed pub-with-rooms, in an ‘attractive village’, is believed to be the oldest inn in the county, with a medieval mural and mullioned window to show for it.

‘The Grose family maintains its excellent tradition’ of providing first-class hospitality near the rugged Devon coastline, where consecutive generations have run the family-friendly hotel for more than 120 years.

In a village on the Jurassic coast, step through the ivy-wrapped threshold of this 14th-century former cider house and into a popular pub-with-rooms.

‘Warm and familiar’, this country hotel, in ‘a chocolate-box-perfect part of Exmoor’, has been refurbished in a ‘luxurious, contemporary’ style by its owner, Claire Carter.

At high tide, the waves come up to the wraparound terrace of this ‘beautifully designed’ beachside hotel, sheltered in a pretty cove.

Rinus and Aniet van de Sande have created a much-praised meeting point for art, culture and hospitality at their ‘mildly eccentric’ late-Victorian hotel in a quiet Devon valley.

Pack the wellies and be ready to go off-road: this inviting quayside hotel welcomes dogs and muddy boots coming off the South West Coast Path.

Well placed for walkers on the South West Coast Path, this 19th-century fisherman’s inn faces the beach on Start Bay.