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 the heart of Constable country, Wendy and Jim Sartin’s ancient manor house is a hotspot for painting courses.

‘An amazingly gorgeous hotel,’ writes a reader this year, of Tracy and Galston Blackiston’s restaurant-with-rooms, ‘ideally located’ for a seal trip to Blakeney Point.

Where does one find sanctuary in the middle of town? At the end of a discreet lane behind the main street, Les and Vanessa Scott’s playful, Palladian-style house is full of comfort and bonhomie.

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

‘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.

With the Norfolk countryside stretching away on all sides, Tim and Janie Elwes’s ivy-covered Georgian inn enjoys ‘a beautifully rural setting’.

‘In a peaceful village near Lavenham’, this 15th-century former coaching inn is ‘full of character warm, casual, intimate, relaxed’.

‘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.’

‘So cosy and welcoming’, a swish hotel (TA Hotel Collection, see also The Crown, Woodbridge, Shortlist) formed from three timber-framed 15th-century buildings in a medieval village.

Jeannette and Anthony Goodrich’s investment has reaped a rich return, converting a former bank – albeit one in a Georgian Grade II* listed town house admired by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner – into a ‘very attractive’ boutique hotel.

‘A delight not only for art lovers but for all who visit,’ say Guide inspectors this year of Ivor Braka’s unique pub-with-rooms that upgrades to a full entry.

Once the student digs of the Duke of Gloucester, Duke House is now a family-run boutique B&B in a ‘perfect’ situation ‘in Cambridge’s parking restricted area and walking distance for the whole city including a superb pub’.

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.

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.

On a quiet residential street a stroll from the sea in a Victorian resort town, Jeanne Whittome’s boutique B&B impressed readers with its ‘bold, contemporary style’.

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

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

With views across gently undulating Hertfordshire countryside, this sprawling old building, with its outlying stables and barns, dates back to the 15th century.

In a ‘quaint village’ just off the Great North Road, Anne and Richard Furbank’s 19th-century coaching inn is done up with a dash of good-humour.

A ‘comfortable, welcoming’ spot in a market town close to the Suffolk coast, this popular 16th-century coaching inn now offers ‘cool’, modern interiors alongside traditional hospitality.

Waving wild flowers, part of Stephanie and Richard Challinor’s award-winning gardens, greet visitors to a pretty B&B that stands amid rolling fields.

In a pleasant market town, Annie Rowley’s artful Georgian B&B is an Aladdin’s cave of vintage glassware, sculptures and ‘an unbelievable collection’ of objects.

North Norfolk's wide sands and salt marshes are within a flat, short-ish walk of Rebecca and Robert Bradley’s fine B&B.