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

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’

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).

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.

‘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.

Far-reaching views across sheep-spotted countryside spool away from this ‘splendid’ 300-year-old malthouse-turned-restaurant-with-rooms above the Evenlode valley.

On the outskirts of a picturesque Sussex village stands this ‘handsome, extensively enlarged’ old farmhouse, run by ‘friendly, attentive staff’.

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

In the 13th century, a hostelry on this spot provided sleep and sustenance for monks on pilgrimage to Canterbury. These days, Daniel and Hannah Hall continue the tradition of hospitality in their ‘lovely’ 16th-century country inn.

‘We enjoyed it greatly.’ For centuries a focal point in this prosperous market town, this ever-evolving inn has been a hospitable spot.

Double-moated 13th-century Hever Castle, the childhood home of ill-fated Anne Boleyn, is now home to a sumptuous B&B.

Flanked by two golf courses, this 18th-century coaching inn, in a quiet New Forest hamlet, is ‘a great option for a relaxed weekend away’.

Rebuilt and reinvented by Bassam Shlewet, this small hotel brings ‘great service’, chic style and impressive cuisine to a picturesque stretch of the Thames Path.

With Chichester in one direction, the pristine sands of West Wittering in the other, guests at Lloyd van Rooyen and Gavin Wilson’s smart, contemporary hotel have the best of both worlds.

‘We visit Oxford every year and the Old Parsonage never disappoints.’

‘New Forest ponies or long-horned cattle may stage an ambush at the driveway entrance’, but regular Guide readers were happy to take the risk in 2018 to visit this ‘unpretentious, friendly hotel’.

Veterans of the hospitality industry Rona and David Pitchford run Georgian Macknade Manor as an elegant restaurant-with-rooms.

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

Outwardly a Georgian coaching inn on the cobbled main street of the medieval town, Alex Clarke’s ‘absolutely lovely’ hotel is 16th-century in its bones – the timbers from an Elizabethan galley.

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.

Sea and sand are steps away from this ‘fantastic’, well-located Victorian hotel, standing on the crescent bay of one of Kent’s original resort towns.

On the edge of the Old Town, designer Lionel Copley has created a beautiful B&B in this Grade II listed Georgian-cum-Victorian rectory.

Guests enjoy a ‘distant view of sea’ across fields and houses, from this newly built hotel above a town synonymous with oysters.

‘The best of old-world charm and modern facilities’, this child-friendly hotel in a Cotswolds market town near Blenheim Palace has bags of personality.