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.

‘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.’

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.

‘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.

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.