‘We stumbled across the hotel quite by accident – oh, serendipity! We plan to return.’ Newcomers this year to the Hine family’s ‘gracious’ pink brick Queen Anne coaching inn join a loyal following,

Surrounded by manicured lawns, wild meadow flowers and woodland, this Cotswold-stone manor house, a few miles outside Tetbury, has ‘exceptional staff, excellent service, delightful furnishings’.

A lovely little hotel,’ writes a reader on a return visit to Hari and Colin Fell’s ingeniously converted farm buildings in the Forest of Dean.

A discrete buttling theme permeates Paul Smyth and Shaun Bailey’s ‘enjoyable, quirky’ B&B in a former 19th-century gentleman’s residence.

In cluster of Cotswold stone buildings, Chris York and Kate Lewis run their all-round inviting pub-with-rooms with great community spirit.

Barbara and Simon Andersen ‘get almost everything right’ at their small hotel in a market town in the Wye valley, a friendly, affordable base for exploring the Forest of Dean.

‘In a pretty south Cotswolds village’, this is a ‘fun, relaxing place’. A Palladian mansion with Arts and Crafts refinements and an Italianate logia, it was recently made over for the Calcot Collection.

‘A lovely, family-friendly hotel,’ was Guide inspectors’ verdict on this 16th-century stone manor house with spa in beautiful grounds, ‘looking out over rolling hills’.

Close to Batsford Park, once home to the Mitfords, and its arboretum, this Cotswold-stone Georgian inn remains friendly and affordable after a seamless transition from private ownership to the Cirrus Inns group in 2016.

Henry VIII gave the manor of Barnsley to each wife in turn – the old romantic! – before it passed to the Bourchier family, who built this Cotswold stone house in the 1690s.

Ducks glide on a brook that bisects a village green, overlooked by a Cotswold stone pub, owned by Nicola and Archie Orr-Ewing, who also manage The Swan Inn at Swinbrook (see entry).

In its deepest fabric 14th-century, this former coaching inn could, by the 1860s, boast of its hot and cold baths; a more recent revamp has gone much further.

Easy-going cool seeps through this rustically chic Georgian town house B&B (owned by Sam and Georgie Pearman, see previous entry), overlooking elegant Pittville Park.

Zesty by design, laid-back by nature, this family-welcoming country house hotel and spa sprawls across a fine Italianate building.

Around the corner from Pittville Park, this contemporary B&B stands on a tree-lined street, a stroll from the town centre.

Close to the centre of this Regency town, Fan and Alan Bishop’s white-painted Victorian villa B&B is a good base during festivals, races and all things in between.

The hub of a pretty Cotswolds village, this mellow-stoned pub-with-rooms (Calcot Hotels) is liked for its stylish rooms and relaxed nature.

Epicurean delights and country comforts add up to a top-notch B&B in a Cotwolds village.

Quirky and sophisticated: Lana and Sebastian Snow twist expectations at their 18th-century Cotswold dining pub-with-rooms.

With an eye on the Imperial Gardens across the road, this well-restored Georgian villa has a bijou, grown-up atmosphere.

Facing the market square, a stone-built 15th-century property that has variously hosted a monks’ chanting-house, a post office, and a coaching inn, has been overhauled by Sebastian and Lana Snow (see also The Plough at Kelmscott).

The community hub of an classic Cotswold village of tiny lanes and stone cottages.