Far from the hurrying world, this former coaching Iinn stands amid Wordsworth’s northern Lakes.

‘Behind the dramatic facade lies a beautiful garden,’ writes a reader in praise of this hotel and spa with its green oasis at the centre of a divine Georgian crescent.

In March 2018, the then owners sold what was then Bridge House to Silvana Bandini and Chris Staines, she a former general manager at The Pig near Bath, he one-time executive chef at the Abbey Hotel, Bath.

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.

In ‘lovely Cotswold stone buildings around a pretty courtyard’, this mostly 16th-century former coaching inn has had a stylish make-over.

Warm hospitality, centuries-old architecture and ‘beautiful countryside’ again delighted loyal fans of this ‘exceptionally good-value oasis of peace and tranquillity.’

‘We stumbled across the hotel quite by accident – oh, serendipity! We plan to return.’ Newcomers this year to the Hine family’s ‘gracious’ pink brick Queen Anne coaching inn join a loyal following,

‘We have become addicted to this place,’ write trusted readers, following a return visit to this beautiful Elizabethan manor house (Relais & Châteaux).

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

The food is the main course at Janine and Richard Burton’s restaurant-with-rooms. ‘How I wish we had a restaurant anywhere near as good as this where I live now,’ writes a regular reader this year, after returning to her old Rutland haunt.

A row of former miners’ pantiled cottages combines into a rambling, ‘appealing’ country inn in a picturesque setting where, regulars report, ‘generous portions’ and ‘generous hospitality’ come as standard.

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’

Readers ‘had a really lovely, relaxing stay’ at Lila Arora’s apricot-washed Georgian mansion, approached by an avenue of lime trees amid sheep-grazed pastures.

Surrounded by manicured lawns, wild meadow flowers and woodland, this Cotswold-stone manor house, a few miles outside Tetbury, has ‘exceptional staff, excellent service, delightful furnishings’.

‘We were welcomed with a complimentary Pimm’s,’ write Guide insiders, who dined at James Moffett’s historic stone manor house in the Peak District national park.

A ‘lovely drive over moors’ leads to this hotel in a North Pennines village built from the stone of a dissolved 12th-century abbey.

Overlooking National Trust parkland, this Georgian country house has ‘a real sense of grandeur’, say inspectors in 2018.

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

‘A wonderful place,’ write readers this year, of Andrew Wildsmith’s first venture, between Lake District and Yorkshire Dales.

A consortium headed by Office Space in Town has just acquired hotel space in Devon. This gleaming white Art Deco hotel on a tidal island, sold by its former owners after 17 years, is undergoing a multi-million-pound make-over,

Thatched cottages and sheep-dotted fields swaddle the single-track roads to this 17th-century mellow-stone Nadder valley house in an ‘unspoilt’ village.

‘Old-fashioned in style and lovely for it.’ Returning guests this year were pleased to discover that Peter Wharton’s ‘splendid’ hotel overlooking Lyme Bay ‘sails gracefully on, without feeling the need to change things for the sake of change’.

On a tranquil side street in a picture-postcard market town on the River Windrush, this higgledy-piggledy old inn pleased Guide inspectors with its ‘classic Cotswold ambience’.

‘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.