In March 2018, the then owners sold what was then Bridge House to Silvana Bandini and Chris Staines, she a former general manager at The Pig near Bath, he one-time executive chef at the Abbey Hotel, Bath.

‘Such a peaceful, quiet place to stay. The log fire was lit ready for our arrival.’ A new endorsement this year for ‘perfect hosts’ David and Louise Farrance’s wisteria-festooned B&B.

‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

'In its glory, in the very beautiful Otter valley', this Elizabethan manor house is the fifth member of Robin Hutson’s Pig family.

Perfect peace reigns at this friendly hotel in at the end of a quarter-mile drive, in a densely wooded river valley at the western edge of Exmoor national park.

You might find Cornish lamb on the menu at Rick and Jill Stein’s flagship venture in a harbour town on the Camel estuary, but it is for fish and shellfish that fans have come here since Stein transformed a dodgy nightclub into a basic hotel in 1975.

‘Wow! This was good.’ A regular Guide reader offered high praise after visiting Paul and Fiona Robinson’s ‘delightful’ hotel that gazes across Gerrans Bay on the Roseland peninsula.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

‘The style is one of the unique assets’ at Teresa and Kevin O’Sullivan’s cliff-top hotel overlooking sub-tropical gardens filled with whimsical sculpture and statuary.

A row of former miners’ pantiled cottages combines into a rambling, ‘appealing’ country inn in a picturesque setting where, regulars report, ‘generous portions’ and ‘generous hospitality’ come as standard.

A ‘time capsule of ancient England’, Sue Burdge’s venerable former dwelling house has been the village pub and hub since 1837.

A scattering of jazz memorabilia sets the tone – and hits the right note – at this Georgian country house B&B on a ridge overlooking the Cary river valley.

‘We did 14 miles over the moor today and are now pleasantly weary. It is a great place, very sad and wild,’ reads a letter – not from a Guide reader, but from Arthur Conan Doyle, said to have been inspired to write The Hound of the Baskervilles while staying at this 18th-century manor house.

‘To call it a hotel is to miss the point.’ In a peaceful valley, Richard Johnston’s quirky B&B is ‘a blend of rural escape and aristocratic eccentricity'.

With thrilling views over Lyme Bay, the Jurassic Coast and the Cobb, Kathryn Haskins luxury hotel and restaurant is swaddled by lush clifftop gardens.

‘We had unobstructed views across Mount’s Bay, and were treated to two glorious sunsets and a harvest moon.’

Thatched cottages and sheep-dotted fields swaddle the single-track roads to this 17th-century mellow-stone Nadder valley house in an ‘unspoilt’ village.

‘It’s clear why so many guests return again and again.’ Huw Rees and Sam Prosser’s converted Georgian rectory, in large, well-maintained grounds, ‘is a haven of rural peace within easy reach of Exmoor and the sea’.

Tim and Anne Riley’s small hotel stands serenely on a steep hillside on the edge of a village where the Exmoor National Park meets the sea.

Surrounded by woodland and fields in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex, Jamie and Ariane Jones’s ‘olde-worlde’ thatched hotel, once home to the local shepherd, offers ‘a charming and very comfortable stay’.

Breakfast is served at a carved oak refectory table by the Great Hall’s massive log fire at Ann and Ian Dyer’s B&B in a manor house with private chapel.

A trug of sparkling wine, organic home-made fudge, fresh fruit and flowers awaits guests at the ‘lovely’ Maureen Rowlatt’s rather special B&B by a stream, in a private valley on the edge of Dartmoor.

Once used to billet D-Day troops, this revamped early 17th-century mansion now hosts ‘young children, exhausted parents’ and grandparents.

A Victorian baroque showstopper, this manor house stands on a steep hill in gardens above the Fowey estuary. It is part of the Luxury Family Hotels group.