'A wonderful setting beside the loch' with views across the water to Schiehallion, the local Munro, makes Jade and Alice Calliva's former coaching inn a superbly relaxing place to stay.

With its own beach cricket team, Rachel and Graham Bucknall’s white-and-blue friendly gastropub on a no through road to the sailing club overlooks a sandy bay on the Firth of Forth.

The Henderson family’s well-established hotel stands on the main square of a pretty Borders town, a welcoming landmark for locals and visitors alike.

Guests receive a ‘cheerful welcome’ at this pub-with-rooms, which stands by a bridge over the Union Canal in a conservation village.

In a Victorian fishing lodge on the Meikleour estate, owned by the same Franco-Scottish family since 1362, this characterful country inn benefits from a verdant woodland setting and a double-bank salmon beat on the River Tay.

Hikers and cyclists stop for the simple comforts of this ‘friendly’ 160-year-old coaching inn, a ‘busy and bustling’ local gathering place in a village on the Great Glen Way.

In a conservation village with history in its ancient stones, this well-liked, log fire-warmed village inn brims with genial hospitality and a traditional pub ethos.

There's a definite Scandi-Scottish style at Tom and Michaela Kitchin’s gastropub-with-rooms. The impressive beamed restaurant in the former village inn's horse stables has a stripped-back look, with designer lighting, original stone walls and a massive fireplace, while bedrooms might feature wallpaper with a thistle design or Nordic birch forests.

With mesmerising sea views to the Isle of Bute, this quietly situated village hotel offers excellent seafood and a friendly welcome from the owners and locals.

Well worth taking, the scenic, single-track Bealach na Ba winds across the remote Applecross peninsula to reach Judith Fish’s unpretentious hostelry, where low-key charm and cheer spill on to the shoreside terrace.