In a Knights Templar village with a backdrop of imposing Cross Fell mountain, a Georgian mansion and converted coach house are home to a personable small hotel.

Far from the hurrying world, this former coaching Iinn stands amid Wordsworth’s northern Lakes.

Standing right on the quay overlooking estuary and salt marshes, in a coastal village of flint cottages, gift shops and galleries, Emma Stannard’s hotel is ideal for outdoorsy family holidays.

‘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’.

‘This continues to be a very dependable oasis,’ writes a trusted reader and regular visitor to this country house hotel (Relais & Châteaux), between the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage site.

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

‘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.

‘Definitely one to go back to.’ This ‘super hotel’, housed in a 16th-century priory on the River Frome, continues to gather fans.

‘A lovely place to stay,’ writes a reader in 2018, of this popular old inn. On the banks of the River Hodder, it has views to the Forest of Bowland.

‘In a small village in a valley, surrounded by forest walks’, Annabel and Stephen Thomas’s 16th-century country house is ‘ideal for guests wishing to holiday with their four-legged friend’.

‘Wonderfully located’ above the River Usk, this Victorian former vicar’s house has a ‘timeless quality’.

Cocooned in ‘lovely, peaceful grounds in glorious countryside’, Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s ‘welcoming’ Victorian country house hotel continues to offer an enjoyable bucolic break.

Embedded firmly in the Wye valley, Chris and Kirsty Harrod’s Michelin-starred restaurant-with-rooms again delighted readers’ taste buds in 2018.

‘A more beautiful setting than this peaceful bay could hardly be wished for.’

Amid its own grounds of lawn and woodland, on the shores of Loch Sunart, Sally and David Ruthven-Fox run a welcoming small hotel.

Sheep crop the grasses in the parkland around Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical Georgian mansion overlooking a lake and a ruined 13th-century castle – a working private estate rather than romantic Grand Tour fantasy.

‘As the owners claim, this is neither B&B nor hotel, but a family home that welcomes guests,’ writes a Guide insider, of this ‘classic Georgian manor house, deep in the countryside’ beneath Mount Nephin.

‘It doesn’t seem to change,’ says a reader who first stayed some 30 years ago at this pink-washed Georgian country house ‘in a glorious setting’, with gardens bordering Ballinakill Bay.

Infused with warmth, Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion beneath the Slieve Bloom mountains may be a little lived in, but few hotels can touch it for character.

Reputedly Ireland’s longest running hotel under one family’s ownership: its ‘true country house’ atmosphere and easy access to rural pursuits draw back guests year after year.

A beautiful formal garden greets visitors to the O’Haras’ otherwise laid-back and informal Georgian mansion.

For almost 120 years, the Baldry family have welcomed guests to their ancient farmhouse overlooking Lake Ullswater. ‘Wonderfully old-fashioned’ or ‘lost in time’, it’s a Marmite sort of hotel

In a ‘glorious location’, this 19th-century whitewashed inn, perched above Loch Fyne, is run as a ‘terrific’ hotel, bar and bistro by Gill and Archie MacLellan.

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’