‘Whenever a special date crops up, we make a beeline for Gravetye and have never been disappointed.’

‘A superb hotel,’ reports a trusted reader in 2019, of Robin Hutson’s Elizabethan manor at the end of a mile-long drive.

‘There is a timeless feel and magic about the setting’ of this Jacobean manor house. It stands in 'immaculate gardens in Thomas Hardy’s ‘vale of little dairies’.

‘This hotel is amazingly charming.’ A reader was delighted this year by a stay at this 16th-century priory-turned-hotel, ‘in a beautiful location’ beside the church and the River Frome.

‘In a beautiful setting’ in wooded grounds, with trout lake and the River Irfon running through it, Jean-Pierre Mifsud’s hotel is especially praised for its ‘location, ambience and welcoming staff'.

Set within a comfortable expanse of wooded acreage, the Macdonalds’ ‘fabulous’ country house is run in ‘an efficient but relaxing way’.

'A wonderful and special place from which to explore this magical island.'

A half-mile avenue meanders through parkland to Roderick and Helena Perceval’s classical mansion overlooking the ivy-clad ruins of a Knights Templar castle on a lake.

‘Country house luxury’ abounds in this Georgian mansion, run by owners Simon Haden and Frederieke McMurray as a luxury hotel.

Opened as a sporting lodge by owner Henry Hodgson’s great grandfather in 1890, this Victorian country house is surely Ireland's longest-standing hotel under family ownership.

Approached through rolling deer-nibbled pastureland, ‘gracious’, welcoming Simon and Christina O’Hara provide an ‘immensely enjoyable’ slice of Irish country house living at their Georgian pile in Yeats country.

‘Utter comfort – a fire lit after breakfast in the drawing room, drinks from the bar when needed.’ An endorsement from a regular visitor, following another stay at this family-run hotel.

‘It is impossible to criticise this hotel,’ wrote a reader, praising everything from the service to the ‘delicious food’ at this mellow stone hotel.

Lynne Vincent is the perfect hostess and a mine of information at Roy Copeland’s Grade II listed Georgian country house B&B on the edge of a market town, the former capital of Wessex.

On the edge of the village, with the Peak District on the doorstep, this Jacobean-style Edwardian manor house stands in a beautifully tended garden with sculpted box and yews, potager and arboretum.

‘An impressive building', this Georgian manor house ‘stands at the top of a valley, overlooking fields, rivers and bucolic bliss’.

You can arrive by helicopter at the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire’s hotel 'in extensive lawned grounds with a view towards the River Wharfe’.

In the Lune valley, between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, this ‘comfortable hotel with modern, well-appointed bedrooms’ was Andrew Wildsmith’s first foray into the hospitality field.

With a seven-a-side soccer pitch, glamping tents, Bertha’s Revenge Gin distilled in a converted cattle shed, and breakfast served until noon, this is no run-of-the-mill hotel.

‘Nothing compares’ with the Cunliffes’ 'really special' country house hotel and its glamorous satellite, Lake House, with spa, half a mile away.

‘Our stay at William and Sonia Marshall’s delightful small country house could not have been bettered,’ wrote happy readers. ‘We so enjoyed their warm, friendly, personal service.’

David Stott and Clive James ‘nurture an atmosphere of repose and tranquillity, along with informality and laughter and the friendliest of warm welcomes’ at their restaurant-with-rooms beneath the South Downs.

‘We were charmed by the hotel and its attentive staff.’ Guide regulars declared John Edward Joyce’s country house hotel ‘in a class of its own’ in 2019, with praise for the man himself: ‘Mr Joyce has a gift for hospitality.’

A ‘splendidly labyrinthine' Victorian pile overlooking a lake, this castle in name only is Ireland's brilliant riposte to the corporate blandness of many modern hotels.