Buried deep in the countryside, Sue Burdge’s inn is so much the model of an olde worlde Devon pub that it ‘could have been created by a set designer’.

Rock up to the Graves family’s village inn on the edge of Dartmoor for real ales and hearty pub food cooked with flair. Typical offerings: pan-roasted local lamb rump, fondant potato, celeriac purée; stone bass, sweet potato, king prawns, chorizo butter. Traditionally and cosily furnished bedrooms are thoughtfully equipped, down to the teapot on the hospitality tray.

You can eat a soup of locally caught crab in the nautical-themed restaurant at Rachel and Nigel Heath’s Victorian pub overlooking Start Bay, as waves crash on the shingle beach. New England-style bedrooms are fresh and appealing.

Cosy hotel or traditional pub? This 14th-century thatched inn offers the best of both, and will certainly 'tempt us from London again', says a recent visitor.

Possibly the oldest inn in England, with a medieval wooden window pre-dating glass, this thatched village pub in the Teign valley is ‘a gem’.

‘Nothing is too much trouble’ at this timber-framed pub-with-rooms, a few steps from Bayards Cove, where the Pilgrim Fathers departed for America.

Abutting the Roman city walls, this style-savvy red brick old coaching inn (Young’s Brewery) has a lively atmosphere. Inside, a host of interesting curios including a vintage sewing machine, a ship’s masthead, and splashes of colour lend a quirky yet unpretentious vibe. Microbrewed drinks and traditional pub classics are served all day in the buzzy restaurant. In balmy weather, diners spill on to the large beer garden. ‘Boutiquey’ bedrooms are themed (water, wool, cotton).