‘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.

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.

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’.

Once used to billet D-Day troops, this revamped early 17th-century mansion now hosts ‘young children, exhausted parents’ and grandparents.

A Victorian baroque showstopper, this manor house stands on a steep hill in gardens above the Fowey estuary. It is part of the Luxury Family Hotels group.

On the cliff-top with ‘fabulous views of Mounts Bay and down to Mullion Cove itself’, the Grose family’s dog-friendly hotel is a ‘really comfortable, welcoming place to stay’.

In the rolling South Hams countryside, Richard Hendey’s Georgian rectory turned small hotel is ‘a delightful place to stay, peaceful and friendly’. Interiors are smart and contemporary.

In a hilltop market town familiar from Ridley Scott’s classic Hovis ad (Dvořák, New World Symphony, brass band), this restaurant-with-rooms, launched in 1991, is as good today as it has always been.

On the edge of Dartmoor National Park, with views to granite Haytor, the Hassell family’s hotel is ‘a little off the beaten tracks – but worth finding’.

White walls, pleasant staff, bright sunshine, blue, blue sky, sparkling sea just over the road…’ For one reader this year, everything hit the spot at this cool small hotel overlooking Lyme Bay.

‘I have travelled widely but never stayed in a place where I truly felt I was with a close friend.’ Owner Susan Stuart ‘has created a real treat’, says a Guide regular after this year’s visit to the ‘beautifully restored listed house’.

‘There are chandeliers all over’ at Christa and Ian Taylor’s latest addition to the Bath hotel scene – the old Carfax, run formerly by the Salvation Army, now spiffed up to the nines, with the addition of a small spa.

Bird’s-eye views of the Lizard peninsula, little luxuries and an easy air turn this clifftop hotel into a stress-busting retreat.

‘Such a treat’. Wrapped by ‘gorgeous’ grounds, this revitalised 18th-century luxury hotel and amenity-packed spa girds the eastern Cotswolds.

A Victorian pile almost as impressive as the Atlantic swell outside, the Armstrong family’s child- and dog-friendly hotel overlooks one of the best surfing spots in Cornwall.

It had ‘that “special” feel of a very good and well-run hotel’, found a visitor to this country house hotel and spa (Relais & Châteaux) in deepest Thomas Hardy country.

‘No wonder Adam has such a loyal clientele,’ wrote a regular Guide reader after this year’s visit to the country sports hotel, a mere fly cast from Dartmoor.

‘The style is one of the unique assets’ at Teresa and Kevin O’Sullivan’s cliff-top hotel overlooking sub-tropical gardens filled with whimsical sculpture and statuary.

‘We did 14 miles over the moor today and are now pleasantly weary. It is a great place, very sad and wild,’ reads a letter – not from a Guide reader, but from Arthur Conan Doyle, said to have been inspired to write The Hound of the Baskervilles while staying at this 18th-century manor house.

‘The situation, the view and interior are all marvellous,’ writes a reader this year, of Karen and David Richards’s ‘superb hotel’ (Relais & Château) right by the harbour wall in a fishing village on the Roseland peninsula.

In a medieval village dominated by a hilltop castle, between Exmoor national park and the coast, Nigel and Anne Way‘s historic hotel is showing its age – in all the best ways.