The fun begins in the sculpture-studded subtropical garden at this dog-friendly clifftop hotel, and runs through everything, from the ambience to the decor.

For many guests, Hazel Bank is the epitome of a small country-house hotel, with 'delicious food, helpful owners and staff, a beautiful setting with magnificent views,' and walks from the door.

With their background in TV and film, Sara Curran and Peter Sussman are experts in presentation. Since taking over in April 2022, they have hung artworks collected on their travels, refreshed the beautiful interiors, and added a Michelin-recommended brasserie to their 'exceptional hotel'.

The team from Covent Garden restaurant Native has taken over this exceptional restaurant with rooms, continuing the ethos of sustainability and localism with wonderfully creative cooking.

Both culture and nature are on your doorstep at Maggi and Gerard Heelan's 'excellent B&B guesthouse' just five minutes' walk from the Opera House in this splendid Peak District spa town.

Forget bed and breakfast and make it wine, bed and breakfast at this boutique guest house in Ashley and Tom Fahey's Italianate Victorian villa overlooking the promenade.

A 16th-century village inn has been reinvented as a fun, bohemian hangout, with rustic-chic bedrooms, upcycled furniture, modern artworks, good pub grub and an irrepressible sense of fun.

Named in honour of Shrewsbury's famous son, this Grade II* listed Sandford House, moments from the Severn towpath, has evolved into a B&B full of Darwin references, with animal and plant wallpapers, maps and natural history objets.

'Our favourite hotel in the whole wide world,' writes a devotee of this seafront grande dame, run by the same family for 104 years.

A Saxon royal hunting lodge in the Gloucestershire countryside, rebuilt over centuries, is run today as a private hotel by 'lovely hosts' Christopher Trim and Kathryn Warner.

Eccentric, fun and colourful, this Pimlico town house in a leafy residential street is as much neighbourhood hangout and art gallery as a place to sleep and eat.

Banish images of fast-food outlets and slot machines when you break your journey at Tebay on wild and woolly Shap Fell, 60 miles from the Scottish border.

A beacon of hospitality on a remote cliff-top between the English Channel and the rolling downs, this decommissioned 19th-century lighthouse found new purpose in 2010 as a unique B&B. It offers superb 360-degree views from the lantern room, taking in the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs and the South Downs. test

It was nearly Howard's end in 2015 before two local families stepped in to restore the fortunes of this traditional village pub, which 'makes a great base for exploring the Cotswolds' with its 'upmarket pub food, good service and excellent breakfasts'.

This beautifully proportioned Queen Anne-style mansion, in a hamlet between the Cotswolds and the Mendip hills, is as traditional as its owner, Baba Hine, who has been at the helm for more than 46 years.

If you're outward bound for France, this farmhouse B&B, just ten minutes from the port of Dover and Eurotunnel, is perfect for a stop-off – but you might not want to leave. 'This didn't feel like a hotel, it felt like a home,' writes one contented reader.

A 'laid-back, fire-in-the hearth, village pub atmosphere' prevails at this charming thatched gastropub with riverside guesthouse on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

'Offering a buzzy, stylish stay', this quirky venture 'has plenty of attitude within its Georgian exterior', starting with the propeller behind the chrome bar counter, writes an inspector.

Away from the crowds but close to good walking in the Ribble valley, this traditional coaching inn, refurbished in style, is both friendly village local and foodie hotspot, with impressive and glamorous bedrooms, onsite microbrewery, fine-dining and tasting-menus in the restaurant, pub classics and light bites at lunch.

You can dine in style in the Grand Ballroom or hunker down in the cosy old Pilchard inn at this extraordinary Art Deco hotel on a tidal island just a sea tractor ride from the 21st century.

With 'nothing in between to Canada', this pretty blue-and-white weatherboarded farmhouse-turned-hotel which sits above a secluded cove on Bryher's rugged west-facing coast is a 'very special and distinctive place', say guests.

After a 2020 lockdown makeover and change of ownership, this personable, affordable Belgravia hotel is on good form, with smart bedrooms, a 'secret garden' and breakfast, brunch and lunches on offer in the Buttery.

Much loved by readers, this hotel, restaurant and social hub beside the Great Ouse is justly as popular as ever under its new owners.

'Gardez la Foi' reads the Poulett family motto over the door of this thatched, ham-stone village pub, and the trio behind the Beckford group (see The Beckford Arms, Tisbury) have kept absolute faith with their winning concept here. The ambience is friendly and relaxed.

Overlooking the reed beds and salt marsh of Pagham Harbour Nature Reserve, in an 'atmospheric location with great birdwatching from the doorstep', this excellent restaurant with rooms serves 'great food with especially imaginative vegetarian dishes'.

The Buchanan family's 16th-century coaching inn offers a warm Yorkshire mix of traditional pub, smart food and modern bedrooms with character. Overlooking the market square, it's a popular locals' spot both for the ales in the fire-warmed bar and snug and the accomplished cooking.

Readers are unanimous in their praise for James Moffett's Peak District Hotel, a 17th-centiry gem, a paradise for walkers, where the welcome is friendly, the hospitality generous and the cooking hearty.

You don't have to blow a fortune to stay at this relaxed yet refined hotel in some converted barns, the former home of Langham Glass, and featuring many charming nods to its heritage.

There is a ‘wonderful peaceful and calm feeling’ about this boutique hotel in a Victorian gothic gentleman’s residence close to Windermere’s town centre with a bus stop right outside and 'first-class service'.

You can imagine nodding off in an armchair over the latest issue of Samuel Johnson's Idler, or William Hazlitt's polemics in the Tatler, when you step into this time-warp hotel and close the door on trendy Soho. It was here, on a Georgian terrace in the 1820s, that essayist Hazlitt penned his valediction, and antiques and furnishings keep faith with a bygone age.