‘Behind the dramatic facade lies a beautiful garden,’ writes a reader in praise of this hotel and spa with its green oasis at the centre of a divine Georgian crescent.

In March 2018, the then owners sold what was then Bridge House to Silvana Bandini and Chris Staines, she a former general manager at The Pig near Bath, he one-time executive chef at the Abbey Hotel, Bath.

‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

'In its glory, in the very beautiful Otter valley', this Elizabethan manor house is the fifth member of Robin Hutson’s Pig family.

Perfect peace reigns at this friendly hotel in at the end of a quarter-mile drive, in a densely wooded river valley at the western edge of Exmoor national park.

You might find Cornish lamb on the menu at Rick and Jill Stein’s flagship venture in a harbour town on the Camel estuary, but it is for fish and shellfish that fans have come here since Stein transformed a dodgy nightclub into a basic hotel in 1975.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

A scattering of jazz memorabilia sets the tone – and hits the right note – at this Georgian country house B&B on a ridge overlooking the Cary river valley.

In a peaceful valley, Richard Johnston’s quirky B&B is ‘a blend of rural escape and aristocratic eccentricity’.

Thatched cottages and sheep-dotted fields swaddle the single-track roads to this 17th-century mellow-stone Nadder valley house in an ‘unspoilt’ village.

Up 137 steps, through ‘glorious’ gardens, ‘one of the most comfortable establishments I’ve ever stayed in’ occupies a higgle piggle of houses with ‘extraordinary views’ across Falmouth Bay.

‘Old-fashioned in style and lovely for it.’ Returning guests this year were pleased to discover that Peter Wharton’s ‘splendid’ hotel overlooking Lyme Bay ‘sails gracefully on, without feeling the need to change things for the sake of change’.

Surrounded by woodland and fields in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex, Jamie and Ariane Jones’s ‘olde-worlde’ thatched hotel, once home to the local shepherd, offers ‘a charming and very comfortable stay’.

Once used to billet D-Day troops, this revamped early 17th-century mansion now hosts ‘young children, exhausted parents’ and grandparents.

A Victorian baroque showstopper, this manor house stands on a steep hill in gardens above the Fowey estuary. It is part of the Luxury Family Hotels group.

‘As superb and lovely as ever,’ Martyn Scarterfield and Petra Lampe’s Edwardian holiday cottage turned guest house is ‘a home-away-from-home’ for many devoted returning visitors.

‘What a super place to stay for tackling some of the Coastal Path; it ticks all possible boxes,’ writes a Guide inspector in 2018 of Sally and Chris Searle’s historic B&B.

‘Completely wonderful in every way.’ ‘One of our absolute favourites.’ Readers give the thumbs-up to Richard Seton’s spa hotel overlooking the River Dart.

A Regency cottage-orné, built by Jeffry Wyatville as a fishing lodge for Georgiana, Duchess of Bedford, is run today in characteristic relaxed-chic style by Olga Polizzi (see also Tresanton, St Mawes).

This ‘youthful, buzzy’ spot, say returning guests this year, is liked for its ‘good rooms, helpful, friendly staff, excellent food – and no flashy bits’.

‘We cannot praise it too highly,’ says a report this year on brothers Charles and Edmund Inkin’s dining pub with rooms.

On the edge of Dartmoor National Park, with views to granite Haytor, the Hassell family’s hotel is ‘a little off the beaten tracks – but worth finding’.

Hazel Billington and Ross Lewin are the ‘excellent hosts’ of this ‘absolutely fantastic hotel’ that has guests returning year after year. ‘The standard remains high every time we visit.’

At an ancient crossroads on the edge of the Fonthill Estate, Dan Brod and Charlie Luxton’s Georgian pub-with-rooms is a ‘popular, good-value’ spot.