‘An informal alternative’ to Pimlico’s pricey traditional hotels, The Orange is more like staying above a local pub – albeit a classy, artfully distressed local with an upmarket clientele.

In one of those atmospheric London entities – a street that feels like a village in the heart of the capital – this hip pub-with-rooms assumes the role of community hub, yet has ‘a great location’, within minutes of frenetic Oxford Street.

‘Convenient for Heathrow,’ wrote readers flying from Australia. They so ‘loved the feel’ of this gastropub with rooms half a mile from Richmond Park that they were planning a return visit.

Old meets new at this Georgian inn, built to serve local coal workers, that now overlooks the stark modernity of Canary Wharf.

A bit ‘cushty’, this transformed former Victorian public house has been part of the landscape since 1878. Local history is captured in old photographs and modern art.

Off the tourist trail, this brick-and-tile Victorian pub (Young & Co’s Brewery), in a gentrified slice of South London, is popular with locals.

Inside the Square Mile, good food and sharp accommodation are found at this popular tavern with a contentious history – two of its former owners were reputedly the ‘true’ authors of certain Shakespearean plays.