‘Behind the dramatic facade lies a beautiful garden,’ writes a reader in praise of this hotel and spa with its green oasis at the centre of a divine Georgian crescent.

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.

‘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.

Mellow sandstone battlements, turrets and towers are revealed only at the final turn of the ‘lengthy’ drive through the ‘vibrant, meticulously tended’ grounds of Paul and Poppy Szkiler’s 19th-century baronial pile.

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).

‘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.

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’.

‘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.

You know where you are with a Pig. The style set by Robin Hutson at Brockenhurst (see entry) is brilliantly carried off at this Georgian manor house.

Developments are afoot at this hotel, centred on a Georgian coach house, ‘in a glorious setting on a huge estate with beautiful walled garden’.

Bird’s-eye views of the Lizard peninsula, little luxuries and an easy air turn this clifftop hotel into a stress-busting retreat.

‘Such a treat’. Wrapped by ‘gorgeous’ grounds, this revitalised 18th-century luxury hotel and amenity-packed spa girds the eastern Cotswolds.

There are diversions aplenty at this much-refurbished 17th-century former fishing lodge on a tranquil estate overlooking Kenmare bay and the Sheen waterfalls.

A country retreat just outside St Albans occupies an extended 300-year-old manor house, once the home of Lord Louis Mountbatten.

A short stroll from the world’s oldest distillery, this amiable 17th-century coaching inn on the Causeway Coastal Route is an eclectic jumble of ancient and modern.