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.

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.

‘One for traditionalists,’ write trusted Guide readers, of this child-friendly, dog-friendly Jacobean ancestral home in Thomas Hardy country, run by owners Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison.

‘Definitely one to go back to.’ This ‘super hotel’, housed in a 16th-century priory on the River Frome, continues to gather fans.

With thrilling views over Lyme Bay, the Jurassic Coast and the Cobb, Kathryn Haskins luxury hotel and restaurant is swaddled by lush clifftop gardens.

Surrounded by woodland and fields in the heart of Hardy’s Wessex, Jamie and Ariane Jones’s ‘olde-worlde’ thatched hotel, once home to the local shepherd, offers ‘a charming and very comfortable stay’.

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

It is as if a cruise liner had docked on the banks of Dorset’s Stour several years ago, to the sound of popping corks, and everyone liked it so much that they’d stayed.

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.

Forged from the coastal villa of an aristocratic MP this ‘gloriously Gothic mini-Hogwarts, all gargoyles and turrets’ gazes out across the sea to Old Harry Rocks.

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.

The ‘lovely’ walled garden surrounding this small hotel gives it a country house vibe in the middle of this historic market town.

Sustainability is the new black at this handsome Victorian villa with pristine green credentials.

The eye-catching interior of Lyn and Jason Martin’s refurbished Regency B&B is bested only by the coastal views from its lofty sash windows.

‘Thomas Hardy’s historic Acorn Inn,’ reads the sign outside this 16th-century former coaching inn (it appears as The Sow and Acorn in Tess, and in two of Hardy's short stories).

‘A handsome Georgian house’ and former coaching inn, overlooking the River Stour meadows in a market town, is today ‘a very pleasant hotel’ with ‘lovely staff'.

In a buzzy spot near Boscombe beach, Mark Cribb’s quirky hotel has a happy, laid-back atmosphere.

Hands-on chef/patron Sarah Lethbridge and her husband, Anthony, have entertained guests at their restored stone-walled country pub for ten years.

Carefully restored, with an abundance of quirky details – a stream separates the dining room from bar – this well-designed roadside inn is a social media hit.