‘We have become addicted to this place,’ write trusted readers, following a return visit to this beautiful Elizabethan manor house (Relais & Châteaux).

Perennial visitors reported ‘a warm welcome’ from Clive James and David Stott at their restaurant-with-rooms – ‘a cherished institution to many Glyndebourne regulars’ – at the foot of the South Downs.

Behind a ‘gorgeous, checkerboard red-brick-and-stone facade’, in a hamlet a mile from Goodwood and ‘an easy, breezy drive from Chichester’, the former village grocer’s shop is run as a friendly B&B.

Now a ‘gracious’ B&B, this restored Victorian train station and princely Pullman carriages on disused tracks ooze the romance of travel’s golden age.

‘A comfortable, cosy place with nice rooms to curl up in’, Sam and Janet Bakose’s 250-year-old inn stands on the A272 between Midhurst and Petworth, in the South Downs national park.

‘Opposite the walls of the castle in this ancient market town’, Lee and Katie Williams run their Grade II listed Regency town house as ‘a top-notch, great-value’ restaurant-with-rooms.

Facing the ‘wide sweep of tidal mudflats’ surrounding Pagham Harbour, this whitewashed restaurant-with-rooms stands as a ‘tucked-away’ beacon of ‘delicious food’ and ‘exceptional hospitality’.

‘As wonderful as ever,’ writes a regular visitor to Sarah Burgoyne’s ‘charmingly run’ Grade II listed, red brick Georgian manor house adjoining a private estate, close to Lewes.

‘Great place. Wonderful breakfast.’ A thumbs-up this year from visitors to David and Barbara Shaw’s unusual B&B, at a decommissioned granite lighthouse in a ‘dramatic, empty landscape’, in the South Downs national park.

On the outskirts of a picturesque Sussex village stands this ‘handsome, extensively enlarged’ old farmhouse, run by ‘friendly, attentive staff’.

Outwardly a Georgian coaching inn on the cobbled main street of the medieval town, Alex Clarke’s ‘absolutely lovely’ hotel is 16th-century in its bones – the timbers from an Elizabethan galley.

A ‘stunningly restored’ 17th-century threshing barn in the South Downs national park is the heart of Moya and Richard Connell’s rural B&B/restaurant and working organic farm.

The ‘beautiful gardens’, ‘wonderful atmosphere’ and ‘pleasant rooms’ were highlighted by guests this year, who praised this ‘delightful’ B&B.

Ahead of the curve, Susan and Roger Marlowe’s characterful B&B within the East Cliff conservation area has long been a bastion of sustainable practices and high-quality, locally sourced organic food.

Brimming with an ‘interesting collection’ of curios from far-flung lands, Max O’Rourke’s characterful seafront hotel is both ‘splendidly quirky’ and ‘utterly relaxed’.

The shipbuilders, boozy sailors and notorious Tenterden smuggling gang that once formed the clientele of this 18th-century watering hole, have been replaced by peace-seeking travellers bent on finding a decent meal.

Walk across Petworth Park to this 350-year-old, quintessentially English village inn, once a regular stopover for the Household Cavalry, who would rest their horses en route to Portsmouth. .

Chic and rustic, this ‘simply lovely’ spot, in the foothills of the South Downs, is a countryside inn through and through.

Steeped with Scandinavian cool, Mariella and William Fleming’s renovated village pub-with-rooms is a stylishly relaxed spot near the Chichester canal towpath.