Patio doors open to the garden on a fine day at Dan Brod and Charlie Luxton’s updated stone-built inn on the edge of Wiltshire’s Fonthill Estate. The food is pub grub par excellence, from home- made game pie with a pint of Butcombe bitter, to weekend pizzas from the wood-fired oven, and suckling pig roasted over a fire in the bar. Modern country-style bedrooms have natural toiletries and vintage Welsh blankets.

From a burger in the beer garden or bar, to Michelin-starred cooking, Guy and Brittany Manning will provide at their thatched village pub. Boutique guest-house rooms have decking almost on the banks of the Avon. Better than ever, say our readers.

The whitewashed, ivy-hung exterior of this former tannery-turned-ale house does little to betray its ‘stunning, modern’ interiors, nor the ‘warmth and charm’ that welcome visitors and locals.

The hub of the village, within trotting distance of the iconic white horse, this ‘impressive’ pub-with-rooms has much going on.

On a working organic farm on the edge of the Wiltshire Downs, this quirky, affable pub-with-rooms reflects the vision of food ethics pioneer Helen Browning.

‘Enter by a narrow flagstone passageway and low, latched doorways’ to discover the very model of ‘an olde worlde hostelry’.

Handsome and historic, this buzzy pub-with-rooms (owned by Butcombe Brewing) has character to spare.