On a quiet side street in this photogenic town on the River Windrush, the Lamb has been receiving guests since the 1750s.

‘Well placed for visiting the historic market towns' of Midhurst and Petworth, Sam and Janet Bakose’s 18th-century inn proved more than halfway decent on a Guide inspection.

‘We enjoyed the waterside location,’ write trusted readers this year, drawn back for a third stay at Sam and Janet Bakose’s 350-year-old inn overlooking Pagham Harbour with its reserve of mudflats and salt marsh.

Award-winning chef Kuba Winkowski marks his tenth year at Tony and Amanda Timmer’s ‘truly amazing’ restaurant-with-rooms, in a converted malthouse. Its garden overlooks the Evenlode valley.

Nick Mash has taken a step back to the future in reinventing the 18th-century red brick Three Horseshoes pub as a restaurant-with-rooms.

The Cotswolds outpost of Justin and Charlotte Salisbury's small boutique hotel collection, this 16th-century hub-of-the-village pub-with-rooms is now a charming, bohemian bolt-hole.

In the Vale of the White Horse guests enjoy ‘delicious’ food, ‘exceptional’ accommodation, and a ‘fine welcome’ at this 18-century country pub with ‘a lovely beer garden’.

A ‘delightful, friendly place’, this ‘extraordinarily good-value’ 17th-century mellow stone coaching inn has recently been refreshed, yet retains its authentic country air.

Rebuilt and reinvented by Bassam Shlewet, this award-winning boutique hotel brings ‘great service’, chic style and impressive cuisine to a picturesque stretch of the Thames Path.

‘The best B&B we have ever stayed in’, the ‘Welly’ is a small but beautifully formed foodie pub on the Hampshire–Berkshire border.

In ‘a gorgeous village hidden away on the banks of the Thames’, this 17th-century inn is owned by Sebastian and Lana Snow, who also have the Five Alls, a stroll along the Thames Path at Lechlade (Shortlist).

The Pointers were a prominent local family, but as a motif for an inn with an outdoorsy, farm-to-fork ethos, a gun dog does very nicely.

Bursting with character, a ‘top-rate pub-with-rooms’, in an 18th-century coaching inn (Fuller’s Hotels and Inns) near the cathedral.

Owner George Dailey revitalised this honey-stone roadside pub from a tired pub into a popular village hub.

Walk across Petworth Park to this 350-year-old, quintessentially English village inn, once a regular stop-over for the Household Cavalry, who would rest their horses en route to Portsmouth. .

Guests to Dane and Sarah Allchorne’s ‘enjoyable’ pub-with-rooms may well feel like the cats that got the cream.

Chic and rustic, this ‘simply lovely’ spot, in the foothills of the South Downs, is a countryside inn through and through.

Steeped with Scandinavian cool, Mariella and William Fleming’s renovated village pub-with-rooms is a stylishly relaxed spot near the Chichester canal towpath.

Two ‘tastefully refurbished’ Regency town houses near the harbour combine into this ‘buzzy, friendly’ pub-with-rooms.

Popular with the racing fraternity and couples in search of a weekend escape, this old sheep drover’s inn is on the village outskirts, with wide views over the Berkshire Downs.

With a leafy garden overlooking the common, Robert and Sally Hogben’s nattily refurbished Georgian building is an appealing spot for an alfresco rendezvous.

In a village on the edge of the South Downs national park, the Newbon family has given a new lease of life to a run-down West Sussex pub.

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Under enthusiastic owner Marc Bridgen this ancient pub is today ‘less a local than a comfortable lounge bar’ and canine-friendly restaurant-with-rooms.