‘A great base for exploring,’ Richard Ireton and Sarah Hudson’s ‘pleasing, white-painted coaching inn’ stands overlooking an old stone bridge across the River Monmow, while ‘behind it, green hills gently rise’.

Surrounded by ‘handsome’ gardens bursting with rhododendrons, this ‘striking’ Italianate villa is a peaceful spot in an idyllic setting.

‘As good as ever’, this ‘delightful’ small hotel occupies an 18th-century stone dower house (once the home of Sir Wilfrid Thesiger), in extensive grounds leading to the River Teme.

‘In a small village in a valley, surrounded by forest walks’, Annabel and Stephen Thomas’s 16th-century country house is ‘ideal for guests wishing to holiday with their four-legged friend’.

A romantic Jacobean mansion, first opened as a hotel in 1990 by the late Sir Bernard Ashley, remains home to his ‘fabulous collection of paintings, sculptures and antiques’.

‘The best of its kind.’ Standing in an ‘appealing’ village is Edward and Louise Sykes’s small, ‘equally professional and personable’ Georgian restaurant-with-rooms.

Clustered on the edge of a spectacular tidal estuary, this mansion house hotel – the focal point of Sir Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis's Italianate village – has welcomed guests including HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell.

Rich in antiques, fine wood panelling and painted ceilings. this sumptuous, well-refurbished country house hotel, in an historic Victorian manor house, lies on the edge of Snowdonia national park.

There’s much to shout about at this long-established, family-run restaurant-with-rooms in a pretty village of artisan shops and galleries.

In the verdant Elwy valley, Lynn Cunnah-Watson and Tim Watson’s handsome sandstone inn provides ‘utter relaxation’.

With extensive views over the Tywi estuary, David and Wendy Beaney’s Georgian restaurant-with-rooms has brought ‘stylish minimalism down to a fine art’.