An 18th-century former coaching inn, which gave its name to the village that grew up around it, is run today as a restaurant-with-rooms by chef/proprietor Geoffrey Smeddle and his wife, Katherine.

A passion for all things Orcadian infuses this ‘delightful’ and ‘welcoming’ restaurant-with-rooms overlooking Scapa Flow and the southern Orkney islands.

It’s worth driving the long road to Scarista House, with its ‘well-deserved reputation for excellent feasting’ and ‘one of Britain’s most extraordinary locations’.

A tapestry room, a state drawing room, a whisky room, a sitting room lined with gilded Cordoba leather… James Thomson’s 17th-century mansion beside Royal Holyrood Park pleases by a fine excess.

‘Derek and Celia are just fabulous,’ praised visitors this year. ‘Friendly, efficient – and they’ve done a magnificent job in maintaining and enhancing this former tweed mill.’

Grey seals loll the day away along an old ferry slipway on the shores of ‘wild, beautiful’ Loch Glendhu – the ‘superb setting’ for ‘hands-on, energetic’ Tanja Lister and Sonia Virechauveix’s ‘most enjoyable’ small hotel.

In a wild coastal corner of the Highlands, this white-painted Victorian house gazes out across moorland, croft and sea.

‘We felt comfortable and well fed,’ report readers, following a stay at Shirley and Eddie Spear’s remote restaurant-with-rooms overlooking Loch Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye.

‘We were looking forward to our stay,’ write Guide insiders, on returning to this classical Georgian mansion in ‘wonderful grounds’, rescued from ruin in the 1990s by Don and Wendy Matheson.

‘Deserves its entry’ is a trusted reader’s verdict on Ina and Kieron Kelly’s family-run hotel in a mountain landscape at the head of Loch Shiel.

‘It was all excellent,’ praise visitors in 2018 to ‘attentive but informal’ Alison and Fabrice Bouteloup’s red-stone former coaching inn-cum-restaurant-with-rooms.

A quiet hamlet, a short hit from the coast, is home to this ‘tasteful’, family-run restaurant-with-rooms in a ‘well-maintained’ Victorian terrace house.

All is fair in the candlelit rooms of James Thomson’s enthralling 16th- and 17th-century buildings overlooking the Royal Mile, with their hidden doors and dramatic nooks and crannies.

Take a Michelin-starred kitchen, throw in equally impressive bedrooms and a soupçon of laid-back glamour, and you have Paul Kitching and Katie O’Brien’s splendid restaurant-with-rooms.

Clare Johnson and David Wilson’s gloriously remote red-roofed restaurant-with-rooms continues to delight and dazzle.

A short detour off the scenic Southern Upland Way reveals a ‘pleasant town’ where Robert and Mhairi Ash’s ‘lovely Victorian house’ overlooks the surrounding hills.

Guide readers this year ‘enjoyed the warm welcome’ from ‘helpful hosts’ Katrina and William Reynolds at their ‘good-value’ 18th-century restaurant-with-rooms in a Borders village.