Step back in time to an age of quiet elegance at this 400-year-old manor house with views over farmland to pretty Cartmel village and its Norman priory church.

For many guests, Hazel Bank is the epitome of a small country house hotel with the bonus of a picturesque valley setting, captivating fell views and walks from the doorstep.

If you want a hotel with hi-tech wizardry and hot tubs, this place is not for you, but ‘if you are happy with traditional hospitality’ and ‘like to be cosseted, Howtown Hotel will do nicely’.

With views over Esthwaite Water, a friendly welcome and high-quality home-cooked food, this hotel ticks all the boxes for ‘a warm, comfortable, traditional, country house hotel’.

Away from the Lake District’s hot spots, in quiet Lorton Vale north of Buttermere, this whitewashed farmhouse B&B mixes rustic authenticity with modern comforts.

With its indulgent bedrooms, Michelin-starred dining, attentive staff and guaranteed privacy, many look to Gilpin as the ultimate in Lakeland luxury.

Many regard Borrowdale as the Lake District’s most picturesque valley, and this comfortable Edwardian country house has one of its finest locations.

With an enviable position on Windermere, this Georgian hall has a relaxed country house style, a choice of dining and bedrooms ranging from family-friendly to seriously swanky.

With its towers and battlements this Victorian-folly castle, in 15 acres of grounds, looks imposing yet is ‘a wonderful place to relax, kick back and take it easy’.

Speed past this hotel on your M6 journey through the Lake District and you’re missing a treat; quiet rooms with fell views, tasty Cumbrian food, excellent value and an overall feeling of ‘peace and well-being’.

To find a gem in a quiet corner of the visitor-thronged Lake District is not easy, but this smart village inn in the lovely Lyth valley is, as one reader reports, ‘always a favourite’.

This ‘splendid old inn’, in a market town between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales, deftly mixes historic charm – beams, crackling fires and exposed stonework – with an updated, modern touch.

Refreshingly different from some of the more traditional Lake District offerings, this contemporary hotel is in a beautiful setting overlooking Grasmere.

In landscaped grounds, Jamie and Jenna Shail’s Grade II listed manor house pleases, inside and out.

Overlooking the Levens estuary, watch the tide race in from Robert Lyons and Lesley Wheeler’s traditional pub-with-rooms – it’s a thrilling sight that harks centuries back to when the inn was a stopover for coaches and horses before they crossed the sands to Lancaster.

In a Victorian house with sweeping views over Morecambe Bay, this comfortable hotel, run by two generations of the Read family, retains the loyal affection of its many returning guests.

Unparalleled fell views are found at this family-friendly spot on the lower slopes of Skiddaw.

A ‘convivial’ country pub with cosy rooms and ‘very good’ food, the Lowther family’s restored 18th-century coaching inn near Ullswater retains its rural roots.

In postcard-pretty Grasmere, this family-run Victorian country house hotel 'ticks all the boxes on accommodation, hospitality, food and reasonable prices'.

In a Lyth valley village on the edge of the Lake District, Becky and Ash Dewar transformed a 16th-century hostelry into this family-friendly village pub.

Cosy, low-ceilinged and wood fire-warmed, this smartly refurbished 17th-century pub in the centre of a Lake District village is ‘friendly, fun and very convivial’.

Between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales national parks, in the quiet Eden valley, this country house B&B offers an elegant retreat against a background of fell views.

With rolling gardens, lakeside views, and elegant, spacious interiors, this Edwardian home above Windermere is more country house hotel than B&B.

In a quiet corner of Cumbria, close to Hadrian’s Wall, this long-established hotel exudes the traditional comforts of a country house but with a modern elegance.

‘This hotel ranks amongst the very best that we have stayed in,’ says a reader about this Victorian Gothic mansion with its cool, relaxed style, vast kitchen garden and inspired culinary creations.

With views down one of the Lake District’s most picturesque valleys, and walks from the doorstep, this former private country house is now a charmingly traditional hotel with 21st Century comforts.