In a Knights Templar village with a backdrop of imposing Cross Fell mountain, a Georgian mansion and converted coach house are home to a personable small hotel.

‘This continues to be a very dependable oasis,’ writes a trusted reader and regular visitor to this country house hotel (Relais & Châteaux), between the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage site.

'In its glory, in the very beautiful Otter valley', this Elizabethan manor house is the fifth member of Robin Hutson’s Pig family.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

‘Definitely one to go back to.’ This ‘super hotel’, housed in a 16th-century priory on the River Frome, continues to gather fans.

A Welsh rarebit on the tip of Cardigan Bay, this ‘lovely, wacky’ hotel is a family-friendly, family-run affair.

‘Wonderfully located’ above the River Usk, this Victorian former vicar’s house has a ‘timeless quality’.

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

‘A more beautiful setting than this peaceful bay could hardly be wished for.’

‘As excellent as ever.’ Regular guests were ‘delighted to report’ this year that this ‘wonderful’ 1840s dower house at the gateway to the Highlands ‘remains unchanged’.

‘More home than hotel’, the Macdonalds’ ‘fabulous’ Victorian country house brims with family history and aristocratic fixtures.

Sheep crop the grasses in the parkland around Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical Georgian mansion overlooking a lake and a ruined 13th-century castle – a working private estate rather than romantic Grand Tour fantasy.

On the Wild Atlantic Way, with views across the ‘dramatic’ Burren Hills to Galway Bay, ‘delightful’ Gregans Castle is ‘the epitome of understated country-house hotel luxury,’ writes a Guide regular this year.

Infused with warmth, Paddy and Hannah Flynn’s Georgian mansion beneath the Slieve Bloom mountains may be a little lived in, but few hotels can touch it for character.

Reputedly Ireland’s longest running hotel under one family’s ownership: its ‘true country house’ atmosphere and easy access to rural pursuits draw back guests year after year.

A beautiful formal garden greets visitors to the O’Haras’ otherwise laid-back and informal Georgian mansion.

‘Remains a flagship in its idiom,’ writes a trusted reader, of this legendary enterprise, centred on a wisteria-draped Georgian house grafted on to the remains of a Norman castle.

Surrounded by manicured lawns, wild meadow flowers and woodland, this Cotswold-stone manor house, a few miles outside Tetbury, has ‘exceptional staff, excellent service, delightful furnishings’.

A scattering of jazz memorabilia sets the tone – and hits the right note – at this Georgian country house B&B on a ridge overlooking the Cary river valley.

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

A tapestry room, a state drawing room, a whisky room, a sitting room lined with gilded Cordoba leather… James Thomson’s 17th-century mansion beside Royal Holyrood Park pleases by a fine excess.

Rich in antiques, fine wood panelling and painted ceilings. this sumptuous, well-refurbished country house hotel, in an historic Victorian manor house, lies on the edge of Snowdonia national park.

Overlooking National Trust parkland, this Georgian country house has ‘a real sense of grandeur’, say inspectors in 2018.

‘As good as ever’, Beryl and Rodney Marsden ‘delightful’ small hotel occupies an 18th-century stone dower house (once the home of Sir Wilfrid Thesiger), in extensive grounds leading to the River Teme.