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

‘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.

The Buchanan family has run this ‘heart-warming’ hotel for two generations, but, bar two short breaks, it has been a local hostelry since the 16th century.

‘Excellent standards are being maintained,’ confirms a Guide trusty this year, after staying at this village inn with rooms overlooking the Vale of Mowbray.

Developments are afoot at this hotel, centred on a Georgian coach house, ‘in a glorious setting on a huge estate with beautiful walled garden’.

‘Effortless charm and warmth’ personify Tiina Carr’s ‘vibrant’ hotel, a ‘stone’s throw’ from the Botanical Gardens.

Facing the leafy Stray’s open parkland, this alluring town-centre hotel is in a seamlessly converted Victorian coach house.

Michael and Sasha Ibbotson’s village pub-with-rooms has stone flags, wood panelling and log fires – the legacy of three centuries of hosting visitors following an ancient Celtic trail to York.

International joie de vivre is found in well-travelled Charlotte and David Reilly’s revamped former Victorian school and headmaster’s house.

Travellers heading between London and Sunderland have long stopped at this Georgian inn which skirts the North York moors.

Across a cobbled driveway, Paul and Helen Klein’s ‘lovely, good-value’ 18th-century inn is an ‘utterly authentic’ slice of rural Wensleydale hospitality.

‘High on the hills’ near Huddersfield, this ‘friendly’ roadside drovers’ inn has ‘detour-worthy food’; ‘tremendous views to all sides’ are nearly as impressive.