Since Chris Staines and Silvana Bandini bought The Ollerod 18 months ago, its transformation into a ‘restaurant-led’ establishment has continued apace.

‘There is a timeless feel and magic about the setting’ of this Jacobean manor house. It stands in ‘immaculate gardens in Thomas Hardy’s ‘vale of little dairies’.

‘An example of how really good management can make a stay memorable,’ writes a Guide regular this year, after visiting Ariane and Jamie Jones’s small thatched hotel in the heart of Thomas Hardy country.

There is much to fire the young imagination at this 17th-century manor house above Chesil beach, the setting for John Meade Falkner’s 1898 tale of smuggling, Moonfleet.

‘A great stay, great staff, accommodation, food, and all in a lovely river setting.’ A resounding endorsement from a reader this year for Robert Wilson and Tim Lloyd’s hotel on the banks of the Stour.

Guide regulars were drawn to this former 16th-century coaching inn ‘partly for its excellent location; partly because of the Thomas Hardy connection’.

With rooms in thatched dovecotes, a shepherd’s hut and an ‘eccentric’ Victorian villa, Robin Hutson’s ‘whimsical’ seaside hotel is ‘wonderfully located’ and ‘very welcoming’.

In ‘a wonderful cliff-top location’, this ‘large white edifice above Chesil Beach’ is run as a restaurant-with-rooms by Mary-Lou Sturridge and Tony Mackintosh, late of London’s Groucho Club.

The eye-catching interior of Lyn and Jason Martin’s Grade II listed Regency B&B is bested only by the coastal views from its lofty sash windows.

With thrilling views over Lyme Bay, the Jurassic Coast and the Cobb, Kathryn Haskins's luxury hotel and restaurant is swaddled by lush cliff-top gardens.

Carefully restored, with an abundance of quirky details – a stream separates the dining room from bar – this well-designed roadside inn is a social media hit.