It isn’t entirely true that you get what you pay for. From a city centre stay to cheap countryside B&Bs, these are the places where you really get your money’s worth. Manor houses with spacious bedrooms, morning greetings from resident chickens or cleverly designed compact rooms in the city. Here are the Good Hotel Guide’s Editor’s Choice selections for best value for money hotels.
2019 Editor's Choice Value Hotels
Editor’s Choice Value Hotels
Aynsome Manor
Grange-over-Sands
Hosts Chris and Andrea Varley’s take great care of guests at their Lake District manor house. Comfortable rooms start at under £100, and at night the daily changing menu of locally sourced fare costs from £23.95.
The Ceilidh Place
Ullapool
A night in the bunkhouse, fish and chips in the café and a glass of Chilean Sauvignon will set you back £42.15 at Jean Urquhart’s fun music venue and bookshop-with-rooms. A good bedroom won’t break the bank either.
Brooks Country House
Ross-on-Wye
Doubles at £59, a four-poster room from £99, a three-course dinner for £29… Gracious country house living is nowhere more affordable and fun than at Carla and Andrew Brooks’s welcoming Georgian mansion. All this and wines from the vineyard.
The Black Swan
Kirkby Stephen
Double rooms start from £95 at Louise Dinnes’s Victorian pub-with-rooms in an Eden Valley conservation village. It’s ideal for fell walkers and ramblers, with a comfy lounge and superior pub food; fish and chips for £12.
Thistleyhaugh Farm
Morpeth
An ideal base for exploring the Northumberland coast, the Nelless family’s Georgian farmhouse B&B sits amid their organic livestock farm. Doubles cost £100, singles from £70, including a hearty breakfast (Craster kippers, local sausages, free-range eggs).
Dolffanog Fawr
Tywyn
There are views of lake and mountain from Alex Yorke and Lorraine Hinkins’s Snowdonia B&B. Rooms (from £90 single, £110 double) are supplied with smart toiletries. Breakfast, and a four-course dinner four nights a week, win plaudits.
No. 33
Hunstanton
Guests arriving at Jeanne Whittome’s stylish B&B are offered afternoon tea and a discount voucher for sister business Thornham Deli, which supplies breakfast bagels, smoked salmon and cream cheese. Doubles priced from £95, £85 for single occupancy.
Killiane Castle Country House and Farm
Drinagh
A 17th-century farmhouse grafted on to a 15th-century castle, in lovely grounds, is run by the Mernagh family as a wonderful guest house. Newcomers are welcomed with home-baked biscuits. Doubles start at just €120; breakfasts are a treat.
The Old Rectory at Stewton
LOUTH
Linda and Alan Palmer are perfect hosts at their Georgian-style Victorian B&B swaddled by lawns and mature trees. Rooms start at £50 for single occupancy, doubles from £75. A generous breakfast is served ‘within reason, as late as you like’.
Trereife
Penzance
The Le Grice family’s ancestral home in parkland is filled with antiques and portraits but the atmosphere is welcoming. Each bedroom is named after a romantic poet; a double can be had for a mere £80.
2018 Editor's Choice Value Hotels
Editor’s Choice Value Hotels
Lake Isle
Uppingham
The food is the main course at Janine and Richard Burton’s restaurant-with-rooms. ‘How I wish we had a restaurant anywhere near as good as this where I live now,’ writes a regular reader this year, after returning to her old Rutland haunt.
Cnapan
Fishguard
Friendly and welcoming as ever, this B&B is run by second-generation owners Michael and Judith Cooper, and their son, Oliver.
The Ceilidh Place
Ullapool
There’s ‘a good night’s sleep’ and more at Jean Urquhart’s ‘lively’ Ceilidh Place – a popular fusion of cultural hub, bookshop and small hotel, one street back from the ferry terminal.
The Black Swan
Kirkby Stephen
A babbling brook etches a course past Louise Dinnes’s ‘good-value, thoroughly dependable’ Victorian pub-with-rooms, where visitors find ‘outstanding food’ and ‘welcoming, efficient service’.
Thistleyhaugh Farm
Morpeth
‘Wonderful location in rural Northumberland. Friendly, peaceful; superb dinners and a lovely breakfast.’
Trelaske Hotel & Restaurant
Looe
Hazel Billington and Ross Lewin are the ‘excellent hosts’ of this ‘absolutely fantastic hotel’ that has guests returning year after year. ‘The standard remains high every time we visit.’
Frog Street Farmhouse
HATCH BEAUCHAMP
‘Such a peaceful, quiet place to stay. The log fire was lit ready for our arrival.’ A new endorsement this year for ‘perfect hosts’ David and Louise Farrance’s wisteria-festooned B&B.
Dalshian House
Pitlochry
Martin and Heather Walls’s white-painted Georgian guest house feels ‘blissfully remote’ – robins and red squirrels in the ‘peaceful’ surrounding woodland are your only neighbours – but it is within easy distance of bustling Pitlochry.
The Nag’s Head
PICKHILL
Janet and Edward Boynton’s 19th-century coaching inn between moors and dales is roundly endorsed by Guide readers, who praise its ‘hospitable, interesting owners’, ‘enjoyable dinners’, ‘relaxing atmosphere’ and ‘excellent value’.
Inch House
THURLES
‘Warm and charming in its small-scale grandeur’, the Egan family’s Georgian mansion sits amid a cereals farm in Tipperary countryside.
2017 Editors Choice Value
Editor’s Choice Value Hotels
Cnapan
Fishguard
Friendly and welcoming as ever, this B&B is run by second-generation owners Michael and Judith Cooper, and their son, Oliver.
The Carpenters Arms
Pensford
A row of former miners’ pantiled cottages combines into a rambling, ‘appealing’ country inn in a picturesque setting where, regulars report, ‘generous portions’ and ‘generous hospitality’ come as standard.
The Old Rectory
Boscastle
‘What a super place to stay for tackling some of the Coastal Path; it ticks all possible boxes,’ writes a Guide inspector in 2018 of Sally and Chris Searle’s historic B&B.
Sea Mist House
Clifden
A knock at the cherry-red door to this ‘characterful’ B&B is answered by ‘warm, inherently hospitable’ Sheila Griffin.
Grasshoppers
Glasgow
If you’re looking for a modestly priced hotel at the heart of the city, this is just the ticket – a modern B&B on the penthouse floor of a handsome, buff stone, 1900s office building, right by Central Station.
Newbegin House
Beverley
‘Perfect hosts’ Nuala and Walter Sweeney clearly enjoy welcoming guests to their ‘beautiful Georgian house’ in a market town dominated by its sublime Gothic minster.
The Manor Coach House
Worcester
In ‘a lovely rural location’ yet within easy reach of the town centre and Worcester cathedral, Chrissie Mitchell’s ‘spotless’ and ‘very reasonable’ B&B is ‘surrounded by delight’.
Bealach House
DUROR
Along a rough track ‘with not a sign of habitation’, Jim and Hilary McFadyen have posted encouraging notices (‘You’re on the right road!’) to arriving guests. ‘You wonder if there’s anything at the end; what you find is a lovely white house in a very pretty garden,’ say Guide inspectors in 2016.
Eight Clarendon Crescent
LEAMINGTON SPA
‘Lively hosts’ Christine and David Lawson ‘delight in sharing their space’, a ‘peaceful’ Regency villa near the town centre.
The Silverton
SHREWSBURY
Just over the Welsh Bridge from the historic town centre, David Cheshire and Donna Miles’s ‘excellent-value’ restaurant-with-rooms is liked for its ‘great, friendly service’ and ‘modern, almost minimalist’ rooms.
2016 Editor's Choice Value Hotels
Editor’s Choice Value Hotels
Castleman - Midweek Special Offer
Blandford Forum
‘Set in a period property, this hotel pampers its clients like friends, and captures an age of country house hospitality,’ write readers this year, of Barbara Garnsworthy’s former dower house in a feudal village.
The Nobody Inn
Exeter
A ‘time capsule of ancient England’, Sue Burdge’s venerable former dwelling house has been the village pub and hub since 1837.
The Black Swan
Kirkby Stephen
A babbling brook etches a course past Louise Dinnes’s ‘good-value, thoroughly dependable’ Victorian pub-with-rooms, where visitors find ‘outstanding food’ and ‘welcoming, efficient service’.
The Old Store
Chichester
Behind a ‘gorgeous, checkerboard red-brick-and-stone facade’, in a hamlet a mile from Goodwood and ‘an easy, breezy drive from Chichester’, the former village grocer’s shop is run as a friendly B&B.
Thistleyhaugh Farm
Morpeth
‘Wonderful location in rural Northumberland. Friendly, peaceful; superb dinners and a lovely breakfast.’
Ael y Bryn
Crymych
‘Ten gold stars’ glitter among a constellation of guests’ praise for the ‘wonderful’ B&B with its ‘aura of tranquillity’ and views over the Preseli hills.
The Nag’s Head
PICKHILL
Janet and Edward Boynton’s 19th-century coaching inn between moors and dales is roundly endorsed by Guide readers, who praise its ‘hospitable, interesting owners’, ‘enjoyable dinners’, ‘relaxing atmosphere’ and ‘excellent value’.
The Abbey House
ABBOTSBURY
In a ‘glorious position’ on the fringes of a historic coastal Dorset village, this traditional B&B has long been run by the ‘most welcoming’ Jonathan and Maureen Cooke.