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’.

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

In a ‘stunning setting’ that inspired CS Lewis, this 18th-century dower house stands high in the Malvern hills.

Henry VIII gave the manor of Barnsley to each wife in turn – the old romantic! – before it passed to the Bourchier family, who built this Cotswold stone house in the 1690s.

‘Such excellent attention to detail.’ Approached through ‘well-maintained grounds’, entered under a balustraded minstrel’s gallery, the Wiser family’s ‘superb’ Georgian manor is a ‘very grand’ affair.

Zesty by design, laid-back by nature, this family-welcoming country house hotel and spa sprawls across a fine Italianate building.