From the moment of arrival at this Tudor manor house on the banks of the River Wye, say readers, ‘we knew this was the place where we wanted to spend time.’

Henry VIII gave the manor of Barnsley to each wife in turn – the old romantic! – before it passed to the Bourchier family, who built this Cotswold stone house in the 1690s.

Facing the market square, a stone-built 15th-century property that has variously hosted a monks’ chanting-house, a post office, and a coaching inn, has been overhauled by Sebastian and Lana Snow (see also The Plough at Kelmscott).

A drive through woodland brings visitors to ‘a romantic lake, a spectacular dovecote, a splendid fountain’, and what looks, for all the world, like a Loire château.