Stone House closed down at the end of January 2018.

The accolades continue as Clive James and David Stott celebrate their 30th year at their well-liked restaurant-with-rooms – ‘a very special place’ – at the foot of the South Downs national park.

The day is one long round of pleasure at this ‘luxurious but unstuffy’ Edwardian country house beneath the South Downs, where classic lawn sports and garden games make jolly the ‘gorgeous, well-maintained’ grounds.

In a pretty hamlet close to Goodwood, this former bakery and village store is run as a B&B by ‘accommodating, thoughtful hosts’ Heather and Patrick Birchenough.

The first in the parcel of Pigs, sunning itself in the New Forest, this ‘relaxed, gorgeously rustic’ hotel remains a favourite of Guide readers.

Pull into this converted train station and take up residence in one of the refurbished Pullman carriages on the disused tracks: ‘quirky and charming’, this is a B&B with a difference.

Coast and countryside flavour this restaurant-with-rooms between Chichester harbour and the South Downs national park – look out for shore-harvested sea buckthorn and foraged cèpes and chanterelles on the modern menus.

‘An agreeable, solidly comfortable base for exploring the area’, Sam and Janet Bakose’s updated 18th-century inn sits off the A272 in the South Downs national park.

Lee and Katie Williams run their restaurant-with-rooms in a Grade II listed Regency building close to the antique shops and historic sites in a bustling, riverside market town.

On the edge of Pagham Harbour nature reserve, this whitewashed restaurant-with-rooms is ‘a wonderfully tranquil, timeless, tucked-away sort of place’.

With a lily-scented terrace in the summer and a log fire in the winter, all is ‘enchanting’ at this ‘elegant, comfortable’ Georgian manor house.

Think of anything you might want from a luxury hotel – ‘friendly, professional staff’, ‘well-appointed bedrooms’, ‘delightful’ public spaces, a ‘memorable’ breakfast with peerless granola.

‘Extraordinary light’ surrounds this ‘characterful B&B’ in a decommissioned lighthouse.

‘However you look at it, it’s truly a delight.’

‘What makes this 16th-century freehouse so special is the atmosphere: informal and friendly, yet 100% professional.’

In a ‘stunning’ location on the edge of a village in the South Downs, Amanda and William Godman’s ‘stylish’ B&B occupies two handsomely rough-hewn, flint-and-brick buildings on a tranquil courtyard.

An ‘oasis of calm’ in the South Downs national park, Moya and Richard Connell’s rural B&B/restaurant-with-rooms centres on a ‘stunningly restored’ 17th-century threshing barn set on a working organic farm.

‘The distinctive cooking brings the customers’ to this ‘greatly enjoyable’ restaurant-with-rooms in a village in the wooded Chiltern hills.

In ‘well-maintained ornamental gardens’, this ‘handsome hotel’ occupies an ‘extensively enlarged’ old farmhouse on the outskirts of a ‘delightful’ medieval village.

‘We enjoyed it all.’ ‘Charming host’ Amanda Lane greets guests with home-baked treats – perhaps ‘the best shortbread ever’ – at her ‘impressive’ Edwardian B&B in acres of landscaped gardens on the crest of the North Downs.

Connoisseurs and amateurs of every vintage find modern accommodation in Christine and Colin Munday’s impressively reconstructed traditional Sussex barn, part of a complex including a restaurant and a wine shop.

In leather and tweed, burnished wood and rustic plaid, Dominic Wood’s ‘lovely old pub’ is a ‘delightful, friendly place’.

Mindi McLean’s B&B is in a refurbished 200-year-old barn in the centre of a historic Surrey village, ten minutes’ drive from RHS Wisley.

The lawn stretches down to Beaulieu river from this 18th-century shipbuilder's house. It's a fine place, today, to watch the boats on the water, as those once-upon-a-time shipwrights did.