The very model of an olde worlde inn, with its flagstones, beams, blazing fires and jumbled interiors, The Lamb sits on the edge of a picture-perfect Cotswolds wool town, in the aptly named Sheep Street.

You can mess about in boats with a fishing rod, sip a pint of bitter in the sunshine or enjoy classic gastropub fare at this cheerful pub-with-rooms beside the Thames, with moorings that are free to guests.

On the outside, it looks like a chocolate box stone thatched pub, but that belies the funky interior of this Cotswold outpost of Justin and Charlotte Salisbury’s portfolio of Artist Residence properties in Brighton and London (see main entries) and Penzance (see Shortlist entry).

At the centre of a village at the foot of the Berkshire Downs, Martyn Reed and Catriona Galbraith’s 18th-century pub-with-rooms brims with community spirit.

A wisteria-festooned arch frames the entry to this prettily refurbished hotel, forged from a row of 17th-century honey-hued houses.

‘Everyone’s idea of a Cotswold pub’, this 600-year-old inn is one of the oldest buildings in a picturesque village of thatched houses on the River Windrush.

It’s not just in the two-Michelin-starred restaurant of Raymond Blanc’s honey-stone Oxfordshire hotel (Relais & Châteaux) that you get great attention to detail: in the bedrooms, even the sugared almonds are colour coded according to the decor.