In March 2018, the then owners sold what was then Bridge House to Silvana Bandini and Chris Staines, she a former general manager at The Pig near Bath, he one-time executive chef at the Abbey Hotel, Bath.

Standing right on the quay overlooking estuary and salt marshes, in a coastal village of flint cottages, gift shops and galleries, Emma Stannard’s hotel is ideal for outdoorsy family holidays.

‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

In ‘lovely Cotswold stone buildings around a pretty courtyard’, this mostly 16th-century former coaching inn has had a stylish make-over.

‘We only called in for coffee, but were shown around by enthusiastic staff… and came away thinking what a wonderful place.’ A reader was impressed by this Georgian country house hotel, set back from the road, in lovely gardens.

‘We have become addicted to this place,’ write trusted readers, following a return visit to this beautiful Elizabethan manor house (Relais & Châteaux).

It had ‘that “special” feel of a very good and well-run hotel’, found a visitor to this country house hotel and spa (Relais & Châteaux) in deepest Thomas Hardy country.

A Georgian gentleman’s residence and next-door Carolean town house combine as one hotel on cobbled Frenchgate.

‘The style is one of the unique assets’ at Teresa and Kevin O’Sullivan’s cliff-top hotel overlooking sub-tropical gardens filled with whimsical sculpture and statuary.

‘Definitely one to go back to.’ This ‘super hotel’, housed in a 16th-century priory on the River Frome, continues to gather fans.

Readers ‘had a really lovely, relaxing stay’ at Lila Arora’s apricot-washed Georgian mansion, approached by an avenue of lime trees amid sheep-grazed pastures.

In a hillside location with ‘stunning sea views’, this supremely family-friendly hotel has something for everyone – indeed, everything for everyone.

Surrounded by manicured lawns, wild meadow flowers and woodland, this Cotswold-stone manor house, a few miles outside Tetbury, has ‘exceptional staff, excellent service, delightful furnishings’.

‘Very enjoyable; a place for relaxing weekends and special occasions,’ say Guide inspectors of the ‘beautifully proportioned Queen Anne mansion in spacious grounds’.

‘We were welcomed with a complimentary Pimm’s,’ write Guide insiders, who dined at James Moffett’s historic stone manor house in the Peak District national park.

A ‘lovely drive over moors’ leads to this hotel in a North Pennines village built from the stone of a dissolved 12th-century abbey.

Overlooking National Trust parkland, this Georgian country house has ‘a real sense of grandeur’, say inspectors in 2018.

‘We did 14 miles over the moor today and are now pleasantly weary. It is a great place, very sad and wild,’ reads a letter – not from a Guide reader, but from Arthur Conan Doyle, said to have been inspired to write The Hound of the Baskervilles while staying at this 18th-century manor house.

‘In a quiet part of the village, overlooking the duck pond,’ Jacquie Pern and Peter Neville’s ‘very comfortable hotel’ finds favour with trusted readers.

A consortium headed by Office Space in Town has just acquired hotel space in Devon. This gleaming white Art Deco hotel on a tidal island, sold by its former owners after 17 years, is undergoing a multi-million-pound make-over,

‘The situation, the view and interior are all marvellous,’ writes a reader this year, of Karen and David Richards’s ‘superb hotel’ (Relais & Château) right by the harbour wall in a fishing village on the Roseland peninsula.

‘Old-fashioned in style and lovely for it.’ Returning guests this year were pleased to discover that Peter Wharton’s ‘splendid’ hotel overlooking Lyme Bay ‘sails gracefully on, without feeling the need to change things for the sake of change’.

On a tranquil side street in a picture-postcard market town on the River Windrush, this higgledy-piggledy old inn pleased Guide inspectors with its ‘classic Cotswold ambience’.

‘Aldeburgh is such a delightful place, made perfect by having the Wentworth.’ Praise from a trusted reader for Michael Pritt’s Victorian hotel across the road from the shingle beach.