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.

Les and Vanessa Scott’s playful, Palladian-style house is all comfort and bonhomie.

‘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.

‘Well liked by traditionalists and locals,’ Emma and Hugh Asher’s creeper-smothered hotel was buzzing on a Saturday night when Guide readers arrived.

‘There have been changes since last year at this restaurant-with-rooms in a small coastal town dominated by its 12th-century castle and famous for its oysters.

‘One of my favourite hotels,’ writes a trusted reader, who spent four nights at the Nye family’s inn with views across salt marshes to the sea. ‘Good location, nice room, excellent food.’

In the Stour valley, close to the Essex border, Richard Sunderland’s pub-with-rooms stands in the ‘village centre, surrounded by landscaped gardens, with views over lovely countryside’.

A country retreat just outside St Albans occupies an extended 300-year-old manor house, once the home of Lord Louis Mountbatten.

Standing in well-maintained gardens, an 19th-century water mill is now a modern spa hotel.

Near the RSPB Titchwell Marsh nature reserve, this dog- and family-friendly hotel is sandwiched between fields and ochre-hued marshland, leading down to the North Sea.

A bit of country cool has turned a neglected Victorian pub into a ‘terrific’ inn that retains its village local cachet.

In the middle of a ‘pretty’ village, this ‘intimate’ restaurant-with-rooms is liked for its ‘high-quality’ accommodation and ‘excellent food’.

‘Unpretentious and friendly’, the creeper-covered red-brick building has been a good base for outdoorsy sorts since the Tudors’ reign.

Amid acres of ‘lovely’ rose gardens and landscaped lawns, this family-run hotel combines old-fashioned comfort and modern flourishes with ‘superb service’.

Constable country reaches to the the doorstep of this affable, historic restaurant-with-rooms in a coastal village known for its swans.

Visitors answering the call of the wild birds at the RSPB nature reserve at Minsmere convene with locals at this 12th-century coaching inn, much-liked for its dog-friendly atmosphere.

Facing an expansive green ringed by lime trees in this quaint seaside town, Stephen and Antonia Bournes have refashioned a plain, old inn into a contemporary hotel and restaurant.

A revitalising make-over has turned this large, red brick Victorian hotel into a smart spot on one of the arteries leading into the heart of the historic town.