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.

‘Such a peaceful, quiet place to stay. The log fire was lit ready for our arrival.’ A new endorsement this year for ‘perfect hosts’ David and Louise Farrance’s wisteria-festooned B&B.

‘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’.

‘We only called in for coffee, but were shown around by enthusiastic staff… and came away thinking what a wonderful place.’ A reader was impressed by this Georgian country house hotel, set back from the road, in lovely gardens.

It had ‘that “special” feel of a very good and well-run hotel’, found a visitor to this country house hotel and spa (Relais & Châteaux) in deepest Thomas Hardy country.

'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.

‘Wow! This was good.’ A regular Guide reader offered high praise after visiting Paul and Fiona Robinson’s ‘delightful’ hotel that gazes across Gerrans Bay on the Roseland peninsula.

‘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.

‘The style is one of the unique assets’ at Teresa and Kevin O’Sullivan’s cliff-top hotel overlooking sub-tropical gardens filled with whimsical sculpture and statuary.

A row of former miners’ pantiled cottages combines into a rambling, ‘appealing’ country inn in a picturesque setting where, regulars report, ‘generous portions’ and ‘generous hospitality’ come as standard.

In the town centre, a ‘beautifully furnished, traditional, very comfortable and cheerfully run’ hotel stands inside a wisteria-festooned medieval castle..

In a hillside location with ‘stunning sea views’, this supremely family-friendly hotel has something for everyone – indeed, everything for everyone.

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.

‘We did 14 miles over the moor today and are now pleasantly weary. It is a great place, very sad and wild,’ reads a letter – not from a Guide reader, but from Arthur Conan Doyle, said to have been inspired to write The Hound of the Baskervilles while staying at this 18th-century manor house.

‘To call it a hotel is to miss the point.’ In a peaceful valley, Richard Johnston’s quirky B&B is ‘a blend of rural escape and aristocratic eccentricity'.

With thrilling views over Lyme Bay, the Jurassic Coast and the Cobb, Kathryn Haskins luxury hotel and restaurant is swaddled by lush clifftop gardens.

‘We had unobstructed views across Mount’s Bay, and were treated to two glorious sunsets and a harvest moon.’

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.

‘The situation, the view and interior are all marvellous,’ writes a reader this year, of Karen and David Richards’s ‘superb hotel’ (Relais & Château) right by the harbour wall in a fishing village on the Roseland peninsula.

‘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’.