‘On our umpteenth-plus-one visit, we found it as wonderful as ever,’ a devotee writes this year.

‘Our favourite small hotel – simply the best run we’ve ever stayed at.’ The Cunliffe family’s ‘great’ country house hotel continues to please Guide readers.

‘A poetic setting of beach and sea and garden.’ An ‘abundance of calm’ settles upon this smart seaside hotel, thanks to the ‘very hands-on’ owners, Paul and Fiona Robinson, and their well-trained staff.

Arrive by sea tractor (‘an experience in itself’) to fully appreciate this ‘amazing’ Grade II listed hotel – an ‘Art Deco tour de force’, and a dreamlike tribute to the now-faded glamour of the 1930s.

Turn down a wooded track and keep going (‘you’ll think you’ve gone too far, but it’s a little bit further’): at the end is a rustic B&B where sparkling wine, home-made truffles and Maureen Rowlatt’s ‘charming’ hospitality await.

The ‘magical setting’ in the Valency valley is the perfect spot for a whimsical tale. Thomas Hardy arrived here in 1870, to be met at the door by the rector’s sister-in-law, Emma Gifford, his future first wife. If it’s the romance of the story that draws guests to Sally and Chris Searle’s B&B, it’s the hospitality that inspires them to return.

Train buffs make tracks for this ‘quirky’ B&B, occupying a handsomely restored timber-built late Victorian station and four refurbished Pullman carriages on the disused railway line.