Standing right on the quay overlooking estuary and salt marshes, in a coastal village of flint cottages, gift shops and galleries, Emma Stannard’s hotel is ideal for outdoorsy family holidays.

‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

In ‘lovely Cotswold stone buildings around a pretty courtyard’, this mostly 16th-century former coaching inn has had a stylish make-over.

‘The surrounds are dramatic, the interiors pretty spectacular too.’ Readers report much to enjoy at Robert Dorrien-Smith’s gloriously isolated island hotel.

The Barlows, whose family have run Treglos for 50 years, have sadly decided to close the hotel.

It had ‘that “special” feel of a very good and well-run hotel’, found a visitor to this country house hotel and spa (Relais & Châteaux) in deepest Thomas Hardy country.

‘A lovely, family-friendly hotel,’ was Guide inspectors' verdict on this 16th-century stone manor house with spa in beautiful grounds, ‘looking out over rolling hills’.

Cocooned in ‘lovely, peaceful grounds in glorious countryside’, Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s ‘welcoming’ Victorian country house hotel continues to offer an enjoyable bucolic break.

In a hillside location with ‘stunning sea views’, this supremely family-friendly hotel has something for everyone – indeed, everything for everyone.

‘Very enjoyable; a place for relaxing weekends and special occasions,’ say Guide inspectors of the ‘beautifully proportioned Queen Anne mansion in spacious grounds’.

Scottish Baronial meets Italian Renaissance in Samantha Leslie’s Victorian pile on one of the last great Irish castle estates still owned by the founding family.

Once used to billet D-Day troops, this revamped early 17th-century mansion now hosts ‘young children, exhausted parents’ and grandparents.

A Victorian baroque showstopper, this manor house stands on a steep hill in gardens above the Fowey estuary. It is part of the Luxury Family Hotels group.

Built in 1832, as Ventnor burgeoned from fishing hamlet to resort for health tourists, the Fisher Hotel became ‘royal’ thanks to the patronage of Queen Victoria.

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’.

‘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.

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.

‘Completely wonderful in every way.’ ‘One of our absolute favourites.’ Readers give the thumbs-up to Richard Seton’s spa hotel overlooking the River Dart.

It is as if a cruise liner had docked on the banks of Dorset’s Stour several years ago, to the sound of popping corks, and everyone liked it so much that they’d stayed.

Blond sofas, fluted pillars, chandeliers, paintings, oriental rugs, gilded mirrors… Opulence abounds in this bay-fronted Victorian former gentleman’s residence on the prom.

On the edge of Dartmoor National Park, with views to granite Haytor, the Hassell family’s hotel is ‘a little off the beaten tracks – but worth finding’.

While families whoop it up at sister hotel Bedruthan (previous entry), grown-ups enjoy the serenity at this adults-only hotel and spa.

‘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.