Here is an exemplary hotel, according to a discerning Guide Reader, ‘elegant and comfortable’, it has ‘an air of confidence’ that sets guests at ease.

Since Chris Staines and Silvana Bandini bought The Ollerod 18 months ago, its transformation into a ‘restaurant-led’ establishment has continued apace.

An Arts and Crafts house in ‘beautiful’ landscaped gardens, run as a country house hotel, is promoted from the Shortlist this year at the urging of a trusted reader.

Widescreen vistas of salt marshes and big skies rush to this family-friendly, quayside hotel. Helmed by Emma Stannard, with 'universally friendly and efficient staff', the north Norfolk grand dame is approaching its centenary.

‘Bravo! I spent three marvellous days at The Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds.’ A reader in 2019 raves about her stay at this Elizabethan coaching inn with roots in the 1300s.

‘Whenever a special date crops up, we make a beeline for Gravetye and have never been disappointed.’

‘We will stay there again soon – if I can afford it,’ wrote a reader after a first visit to this country house hotel (Relais & Châteaux) last year. Things must be going well – he’s been back, to find everything ‘pretty faultless’.

An 18th-century town house combines with its 17th-century neighbour as an atmospheric small hotel, a stroll from a charming survivor of this market town’s Georgian heyday, the Theatre Royal.

‘The real break we had hoped for.’ ‘We haven't had a bad meal here in over 30 years.’ High praise from readers in 2019, suggesting this small restaurant-with-rooms was right to name itself after Yeats’s ode to tranquillity and relaxation.

‘This hotel is amazingly charming.’ A reader was delighted this year by a stay at this 16th-century priory-turned-hotel, ‘in a beautiful location’ beside the church and the River Frome.

We have readers who have been returning for more than 20 years to the Wild family’s traditional hotel ‘in a picturesque village’ once known for oyster fishing.

‘We arrived on a golden Indian summer late afternoon to a warm welcome, culminating in tea on the lawn, looking beyond the ha-ha to a field.’

‘It is impossible to criticise this hotel,’ wrote a reader, praising everything from the service to the ‘delicious food’ at this mellow stone hotel.

‘The garden was entertaining at mealtimes. There seemed to be more hens on the lawn this time.’ A trusted reader on a third visit captures the spirit of James Moffett’s manor house hotel in a 'delightful Peak District location'.

You can drink champagne in the vaulted bar, as W H Auden did, dine among the ancient stone walls like Philip Larkin, or sleep in a tranquil room once used by Benjamin Britten, at this hotel in the monastic buildings of a dissolved abbey.

‘So glad it’s in your guide – keep it in.’ A strong endorsement this year for Jacquie Pern and Peter Neville’s hotel overlooking a duck pond.

In the Lune valley, between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, this ‘comfortable hotel with modern, well-appointed bedrooms’ was Andrew Wildsmith’s first foray into the hospitality field.

Built into a hillside on a tidal island, this sleek, white, concrete hotel has a seagoing aspect. Built in 1929 for a wealthy industrialist, it hosted the likes of Nancy Cunard, Noël Coward and Josephine Baker.

Elizabeth Barrett (not yet Browning) would have known this ‘charming, traditional' white stucco seafront hotel when she moved to Sidmouth in 1832 for the balmy climate.

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

In ‘a great location, just across from the beach’, Michael Pritt’s Victorian hotel has been family owned and run since 1920. ‘It always delights us,’ say readers who visit every year.

‘In a beautiful setting, with valley and fell views all around’, this country house, built for the daughter of a Liverpool ship owner, retains the leisured ambiance of its Edwardian past.

There is much to fire the young imagination at this 17th-century manor house above Chesil beach, the setting for John Meade Falkner’s 1898 tale of smuggling, Moonfleet.

There is no mystery to the appeal of Emma and Hugh Asher's ‘comfortable, 'most welcoming', country hotel with strong Agatha Christie associations.