‘We have become addicted to this place,’ write trusted readers, following a return visit to this beautiful Elizabethan manor house (Relais & Châteaux).

On a tranquil side street in a picture-postcard market town on the River Windrush, this higgledy-piggledy old inn pleased Guide inspectors with its ‘classic Cotswold ambience’.

A shooting lodge in the New Forest is home to the mother Pig, the first of Robin Hutson’s small but growing chain of family-friendly Pig hotels (see index).

Once a month a string quartet serenades afternoon tea at this Victorian seafront hotel nicknamed ‘The White Palace’.

Now a ‘gracious’ B&B, this restored Victorian train station and princely Pullman carriages on disused tracks ooze the romance of travel’s golden age.

Tucked away in an Old Town cul-de-sac, a short stroll from the seafront, this early Tudor black-and-white house is run as a welcoming B&B.

Tourists should ‘forget fancy London hotels’, say readers, and instead head out to Ruth and Samantha Trinder’s hotel close to Richmond Park, with tranquil riverside garden and terrace.

In a gem of a medieval Cinque Port town, this Queen Anne-style house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens has a new lease of life as an upmarket hotel.

‘As wonderful as ever,’ writes a regular visitor to Sarah Burgoyne’s ‘charmingly run’ Grade II listed, red brick Georgian manor house adjoining a private estate, close to Lewes.

‘At night, surrounded by floodlit cedars and oaks, it felt like a movie set,’ writes one reader this year, after visiting the luxury New Forest retreat.

‘Great place. Wonderful breakfast.’ A thumbs-up this year from visitors to David and Barbara Shaw’s unusual B&B, at a decommissioned granite lighthouse in a ‘dramatic, empty landscape’, in the South Downs national park.

From on high, Wendy and Neil Burrows’s farmhouse enjoys stunning sunsets over the Alkham Valley.

A wisteria-festooned arch frames the entry to this prettily refurbished hotel, in a hilly Cotswold town.

The ‘beautiful gardens’, ‘wonderful atmosphere’ and ‘pleasant rooms’ were highlighted by guests this year, who praised this ‘delightful’ B&B.

A long drive through landscaped gardens reveals this ‘simply wonderful’ Edwardian B&B where visitors are rewarded by a sweet welcome from ‘charming host’ Amanda Lane.

A 19th-century former dancehall and livery stable in the city centre has been transformed into a lofty B&B packed with personal touches.

Leafy trails through the New Forest lead to a gingerbread Arts and Crafts house, home to ‘perfect hosts’ Ciaran and Cheryl Maher’s personal B&B.

‘We had a lovely stay, a real treat.’ Guide inspectors could find nothing to fault at Daisy and Clive Hayley’s Georgian manor house B&B, remodelled in the late 1900s.

‘Swooning views of the Windrush valley’ lead the way to this ‘informal inn’ hung with wisteria, where Guide inspectors were welcomed by 'a charming family of resident fluffy-legged bantams'.

Walk across Petworth Park to this 350-year-old, quintessentially English village inn, once a regular stopover for the Household Cavalry, who would rest their horses en route to Portsmouth. .

When Louise Oldfield and Liam Nabb restored their B&B on a Georgian square, they struck a careful balance between the preservation of a 200-year history and a thoroughly 21st-century makeover.

Sue and Frazer Thompson’s serene Victorian farmhouse B&B draws garden-lovers on pilgrimage and history buffs – and everyone in between.

Steeped with Scandinavian cool, Mariella and William Fleming’s renovated village pub-with-rooms is a stylishly relaxed spot near the Chichester canal towpath.