‘A restaurant-with-rooms – and a very good restaurant at that.’ After visiting this year, a trusted reader sums up the appeal of Kevin (the chef) and Jacki Mangeolles’s 18th-century former coaching inn.

Facing an expansive green ringed by lime trees in this quaint seaside town, Stephen and Antonia Bournes have refashioned a plain, old inn into a contemporary hotel and restaurant.

A revitalising make-over has turned this large, red brick Victorian hotel into a smart spot on one of the arteries leading into the heart of the historic town.