‘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.

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.

‘The best hotel break we have ever had’ was enjoyed by visitors this year to William and Sonia Marshall’s Victorian villa.

Mellow sandstone battlements, turrets and towers are revealed only at the final turn of the ‘lengthy’ drive through the ‘vibrant, meticulously tended’ grounds of Paul and Poppy Szkiler’s 19th-century baronial pile.

‘We were looking forward to our stay,’ write Guide insiders, on returning to this classical Georgian mansion in ‘wonderful grounds’, rescued from ruin in the 1990s by Don and Wendy Matheson.

A ‘little jewel’ in a secluded setting.,Jacob and Johanna van Houdt’s small baronial mansion crowns sweeping manicured lawns within acres of woodland.

Flanked by the shoreline and Muirfield golf course, and with nine other courses nearby, the Weaver family’s luxury hotel is a seaside haven for golfers.

Overlooking the beautiful harbour town, a Georgian-style country house (Perle Hotels) in landscaped gardens has been given a sleekly modern interior.

In 1922 a young Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, as we now think of her) joined a house party at this turreted Victorian country house on the River Tay.