Travellers who stop at this Georgian manor house on the way to Dover or the Channel Tunnel might be tempted to go no further.

‘Brilliantly placed’ for exploiting a wealth of Kentish history, this 18th-century house was restored by the Mathiases and transformed into a ‘comfortable home’ and ‘informal’ B&B, where ‘friendly, chatty’ Lynn Mathias welcomes visitors with tea and a baked treat fresh from her Aga.

Close to the cliffs of Dover, this white-painted countryside restaurant-with-rooms is an excellent stopping point on the way to the Channel Tunnel, and a destination in itself.

Swan about in country house splendour at Amanda Lane’s ‘very impressive’ B&B, in an Edwardian house built from the ruins of Thurnham Castle.

Swoop through a private gated entrance and into sumptuous B&B accommodation in the two Edwardian additions to 13th-century Hever Castle.

‘Attractive inside and out’, Dane and Sarah Allchorne’s stylish pub-with-rooms is a cheerful, informal spot, equally pleasing for its modish interiors as it is for its good-humoured, village-hub feel.

‘Sympathetically and stylishly refurbished’, Nick Conington’s Victorian seafront hotel is ‘on top of its game’, say Guide readers in 2016.

Take not the waters but, rather, the wines in this ‘excellent’ outpost of the du Vin group, occupying an 18th-century sandstone mansion in a Georgian spa town.

Louise Oldfield and Liam Nabb have artfully restored this 200-year-old town house on a Georgian square around the corner from the Turner Contemporary.

Vita Sackville-West created the gardens of the Sissinghurst estate as a refuge dedicated to beauty. Now restored by the National Trust, Sue and Frazer Thompson’s Victorian farmhouse B&B is a refuge dedicated to tranquillity.

Mark Sargeant’s ‘modish, imaginative’ restaurant-with-rooms (co-owned with Josh de Haan) brings a new aesthetic to the traditional English seaside.

Away from the hubbub of the city streets, Guide inspectors this year liked the warm welcome and ‘cheerful, helpful’ staff at this ‘very special’ purpose-built B&B and conference centre in the ‘beautiful, tranquil’ grounds of the UNESCO-designated World Heritage site.

With wide views of the Kent coast, this privately owned red-brick bolthole is named for the British master who immortalised the region. Prints of JMW Turner’s works hang in the airy, rustic lounge, above squashy sofas and a wood-burning stove; the spacious terrace looks across the garden to the sea.

Two Regency town houses combine to form this ‘rather nice’ modern hotel, a 19th-century public house, near the harbour. Its smartly refurbished rooms have been decorated with heritage shades and a judicious collection of vintage furnishings, oriental rugs and fine prints.