‘An example of how really good management can make a stay memorable,’ writes a Guide regular this year, after visiting Ariane and Jamie Jones’s small thatched hotel in the heart of Thomas Hardy country.

Personal attention from the owners won high praise from readers this year, after a stay at this restaurant-with-rooms overlooking Blackmore Vale.

In ‘a wonderful cliff-top location’, this ‘large white edifice above Chesil Beach’ is run as a restaurant-with-rooms by Mary-Lou Sturridge and Tony Mackintosh, late of London’s Groucho Club.

Hands-on chef/patron Sarah Lethbridge and her husband, Anthony, have entertained guests at their restored stone-walled country pub for ten years.

Carefully restored, with an abundance of quirky details – a stream separates the dining room from bar – this well-designed roadside inn is a social media hit.