‘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.’

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

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.

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.

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.

Modern flourishes blend with history and tradition at this 'wonderfully atmospheric' old builfing.

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

The shipbuilders, boozy sailors and notorious Tenterden smuggling gang that once formed the clientele of this 18th-century watering hole, have been replaced by peace-seeking travellers bent on finding a decent meal.

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

Priory Park, where WG Grace once wore whites, is a cricket ball throw away from this Georgian hotel inside the city’s Roman walls.