In a Knights Templar village with a backdrop of imposing Cross Fell mountain, a Georgian mansion and converted coach house are home to a personable small hotel.

Wooded hillside forms a pleasing backdrop to this ‘comfortable country hotel’ in an ‘optimal position’ for exploring the northern Lakes.

Somerset born and Somerset bred, Louise and David Farrance have run their B&B in this wisteria-hung 15th-century Somerset longhouse for nearly ten years.

The view is one of marshes and moored boats, of creeks and children crabbing, from Emma Stannard’s well-established, family-friendly hotel on the quayside of a coastal village.

‘There’s lots of room to play and run around’ at this ‘pretty, rambling manor house’ in ‘fantastic grounds’ on the edge of the Cotswolds.

‘A quintessential country house hotel.’ The Quinion family’s creeper-covered manor house in mature grounds ‘combines the familiar features and decor of an earlier age with exceptional service’, writes a Guide reader, a frequent guest, in 2017.

Hardly hellish, Robert Dorrien-Smith’s island hotel, perky in a protected cove in the Atlantic Ocean, is ‘well worth the trip’.

Guests are assured of ‘friendliness and an outstanding welcome’ from second-generation owners Christopher and Andrea Varley at this ‘lovely hotel in the heart of quiet countryside’.

‘An ideal place to slow down and relax.’

‘Describing it as “quirky” is a hole-in-one.’ There’s ‘a pleasant, rural, overgrown tranquillity’ to Wendy and Jim Sarton’s 15th-century manor house in large gardens where wild rabbits scamper.

‘There is much to like and laugh about’ at this utterly transformed Grade I listed Elizabethan manor house, in a ‘glorious setting’ in the Otter valley.

In a valley on the north Exmoor coast, Mark and Pat Cowell’s ‘friendly, unpretentious' hotel stands at the end of a long private drive ‘close to wonderful walks and fabulous scenery’.

The Great House's ‘enjoyable, enormously comfortable’ restaurant-with-rooms adds a dash of French flavour in a medieval wool village as English as they come.

With gilt-framed paintings, a panelled dining room and ‘quiet corners and pretty public spaces to sit and chat in’, the Miller family’s hotel steeps in an ‘old-worldly Edwardian club atmosphere’ in the ‘restless heart of the town’.

There’s romance and genteel decadence to be found in these three finely refurbished Georgian houses – Peter McKay and Douglas Blain’s ‘stunningly original’ hotel.

‘The Michelin star is well earned’ at Tracy and Galton Blackiston’s friendly restaurant-with-rooms close to the north Norfolk coast.

A stroll from the town centre, Rick and Jill Stein’s restaurant-with-rooms – ‘a foodie destination’ – opened as a modest bistro in 1975.

‘Stylish but informal, fun and relaxing – a grand job overall.’

‘A charming place in a charming situation’, Fiona and Paul Robinson’s ‘stylish, informal’ New England-inspired hotel soaks in the spread of Gerrans Bay.

Richard and Brian Prideaux-Brune, with Richard’s wife, Alison, run their Jacobean ancestral home as a characterful – some say eccentric – hotel where guests are ‘cosseted and cared for’ by ‘charming staff’.

A spirit of fun flits about Teresa and Kevin O’Sullivan’s cliff-top hotel, from the sub-tropical sculpture garden full of surprises (‘you feel like Alice walking into Wonderland’) to the ‘delightfully humorous artwork scattered throughout’.

‘You can hear the sounds of birds all around’ this converted 14th-century farmhouse.

‘The setting, ambience and gardens are possibly the most attractive of any hotel we’ve stayed in, anywhere,’ writes a Guide reader this year of the Turner family’s country hotel, in a 16th-century priory on the River Frome.

‘The valley in which this inn sits seems to me one of the loveliest places on earth; from the back of the inn, the views of fells, river and parkland landscape are just about perfect. And the stillness at night is magical.’