Sink into a recliner on the terrace at this cliff-top hotel, and you can gaze out at ‘panoramic sea views’ over Gerrans Bay – or lie back and think of New England, prompted by the seaside-chic decor.

A seaside hotel with serious style, Olga Polizzi’s glowing white collection of cottages and former yacht clubhouse cascading down the hillside is a cross between New England and Mediterranean Riviera.

Fruit and cut flowers from the organic garden, eggs from the hens, honey from the hives, and romantic associations with Thomas Hardy are among the many charms of Sally and Chris Searle's Victorian rectory B&B.

Perched on the hill above teeming St Ives, in sub-tropical gardens, Malcolm Herring’s exclusive small hotel is ‘aimed at those who can afford it, and it really does deliver’.

Serenity and space are the two words that crop up most in the wealth of praise we receive for this ‘utterly relaxing’ adults-only spa hotel with sublime views over beach and sea.

Susan Stuart’s welcoming Georgian town house B&B is so beautiful, it might grace the pages of an interiors magazine.

With ancestral portraits gazing down from panelled walls, a Queen Anne facade overlooking a parterre, and extensive wooded grounds, the delightful Le Grice family's mansion 'feels more like a stately home than a B&B’.

On a steep hill above Carbis Bay, Mark and Fenella Thomas’s chic Edwardian house is a tranquil retreat from lively St Ives nearby.

A 25-seat cinema is a novelty at Karen and David Richards’ hotel in a village of white-painted houses on the Roseland peninsula, but no film can rival the wide-screen views over the Fal estuary from the waterside terrace.

‘In a glorious setting’ on the cliff-top with ‘spectacular views’, this Edwardian cathedral of a hotel that opened its doors in 1898 after being built by the Great Western Railway also has a ‘really nice, welcoming atmosphere’.

Even Daphne du Maurier in her quaint house, Ferryside, did not enjoy better views of the Fowey estuary than guests have from this whitewashed former Victorian seamen’s refuge.

The sybarite is like a kid in a sweetshop at Paul Ainsworth’s Georgian town house B&B on a quiet back street, where each of the six suites is a lavish confection, with foodie references at every turn.

‘This really is a brilliant B&B establishment,’ writes a reader this year, joining a chorus of approval for Paul and Lesley Stapleton’s Grade II listed manor house amid gardens and pastureland.

With views over the harbour, and a crisp blue-and-white interior, Angela and Olivier Noverraz’s 1850s mid-terrace house is ‘a delight’.

Panoramic sea views reach across Mevagissey Bay to historic Chapel Point and beyond, from Andrea and Simon Copper’s sleekly designed B&B set high above the 14th-century fishing village.

In meadows and woodland between Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, this rustic-chic guest house and restaurant make an ideal base for countryside exploration – or simply for eating ‘stupendously’ well.