‘As excellent as ever.’ Regular guests were ‘delighted to report’ this year that this ‘wonderful’ 1840s dower house at the gateway to the Highlands ‘remains unchanged’.

Amid its own grounds of lawn and woodland, on the shores of Loch Sunart, Sally and David Ruthven-Fox run a welcoming small hotel.

‘This is not just a good hotel but a very good hotel.’ High praise this year from a trusted reader, for every aspect of the hospitality at Lord and Lady Macdonald’s historic former hunting lodge on the Isle of Skye.

Mellow sandstone battlements, turrets and towers are revealed only at the final turn of the ‘lengthy’ drive through the ‘vibrant, meticulously tended’ grounds of Paul and Poppy Szkiler’s 19th-century baronial pile.

Flanked by the shoreline and Muirfield golf course, and with nine other courses nearby, the Weaver family’s luxury hotel is a seaside haven for golfers.

A welcoming sanctuary for outdoorsy types, Kate and Gordon Innes’s town-centre hotel provides storage for fishing rods, guns and bicycles, as well as knowledgeable details on activities in the Scottish Borders.

‘A more beautiful setting than this peaceful bay could hardly be wished for.’

‘We were looking forward to our stay,’ write Guide insiders, on returning to this classical Georgian mansion in ‘wonderful grounds’, rescued from ruin in the 1990s by Don and Wendy Matheson.

Surrounded by the Cairngorms national park, this restored Victorian shooting lodge has been given a a zesty finish by the Cowap family.

High praise from Guide regulars in 2018 for the ‘friendly service, imaginative food and lovely room’ at Valerie and Robert Kerr’s Victorian mansion on the outskirts of town.

An Edinburgh landmark for over a century, this Victorian railway stopover is today a thoroughly 21st-century luxury hotel (Rocco Forte Hotels).

Guide readers this year ‘enjoyed the warm welcome’ from ‘helpful hosts’ Katrina and William Reynolds at their ‘good-value’ 18th-century restaurant-with-rooms in a Borders village.