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

‘A superb hotel,’ reports a trusted reader in 2019, of Robin Hutson’s Elizabethan manor at the end of a mile-long drive.

Guests feel ‘thoroughly spoilt’ at this welcoming hotel, tucked away in wooded seclusion at the end of a quarter-mile private drive.

Rick and Jill Stein’s boutique restaurant-with-rooms has been riding the crest of a wave since it opened more than four decades ago.

You can order a picnic hamper and walk down to a private beach through lovely gardens at Paul and Fiona Robinson’s New England-inspired hotel, or just relax on the deck, gazing across Gerrans Bay.

‘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’.

Flower decked without, welcoming within, this 'excellent' village pub, contrived from three former miners’ cottages, is liked by readers flying out of nearby Bristol Airport.

Buried deep in the countryside, Sue Burdge’s inn is so much the model of an olde worlde Devon pub that it ‘could have been created by a set designer’.

Lynne Vincent is the perfect hostess and a mine of information at Roy Copeland’s Grade II listed Georgian country house B&B on the edge of a market town, the former capital of Wessex.

The Mount is St Michael’s, a tidal island best viewed from your bedroom balcony or the terrace of this hotel overlooking the bay.

'Such a romantic spot.’ Deep in the Nadder valley, amid narrow country lanes that are ‘a pleasure to get lost in’, this 17th-century house is owned by Grahame and Prue Senior and Simon and Charlotte Greenwood.

The ‘attentive hosts’, ‘friendly’ ambience and the ‘very beautiful’ situation are the standouts at this Georgian rectory in ‘what must be one of the most tranquil places in the whole country’.

This 'Edwardian gentleman’s residence perched at the top of a steep hillside' is run as ‘a first-class small hotel’ by 'perfect hosts' Tim and Anne Riley.

‘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.

On the family dairy farm on the edge of the Quantock hills, Ann and Ian Dyer run this 15th-century manor house with chapel as a 'warm, welcoming' B&B.

Maureen Rowlatt is the ‘charming’ hostess at this B&B in a private valley, surrounded by gardens that extend into woodland and fields – an ideal spot for exploring Dartmoor and the Tamar valley.

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.

‘An eligible, self-contained gentleman’s residence, very unique. . . with every modern convenience. . .’ So Kenneth Graham describes Toad Hall, which he modelled on this Victorian mansion, a baroque extravaganza with sumptuous interiors, overlooking the Fowey estuary.

‘An idyllic place. . . absolute heaven.’ So say regular visitors to Martyn Scarterfield and Petra Lampe’s dog-friendly B&B with ‘fabulous views’ over Bigbury Bay.

‘A super place. The real deal.’ Praise from Guide insiders for Chris and Sally Searle’s B&B, in the rectory where Thomas Hardy courted Emma Gifford.

‘Perched high on the Lizard cliffs with views out to sea and the sound of waves at night, the setting could not be more romantic.’

After a day spent exploring the shops and galleries of St Ives, guests at Malcolm Herring’s hilltop private hotel can relax on the seaward terrace with a Blue Hayes Colada and feel serenely above it all.

Et in Arcadia we go – to Olga Polizzi’s Regency cottage-orné, in gardens and pleasure grounds with woodland walks and waterfalls, arboretum, fount and follies.

There are ‘no airs and graces’ at this Georgian rectory-cum-hotel in the gentle South Hams countryside between Dartmoor and the South Devon coast.