‘We have become addicted to this place,’ write trusted readers, following a return visit to this beautiful Elizabethan manor house (Relais & Châteaux).

‘The enthusiastic welcome immediately made us feel at home again.’

On a tranquil side street in a picture-postcard market town on the River Windrush, this higgledy-piggledy old inn pleased Guide inspectors with its ‘classic Cotswold ambience’.

Perennial visitors reported ‘a warm welcome’ from Clive James and David Stott at their restaurant-with-rooms – ‘a cherished institution to many Glyndebourne regulars’ – at the foot of the South Downs.

Behind a ‘gorgeous, checkerboard red-brick-and-stone facade’, in a hamlet a mile from Goodwood and ‘an easy, breezy drive from Chichester’, the former village grocer’s shop is run as a friendly B&B.

A shooting lodge in the New Forest is home to the mother Pig, the first of Robin Hutson’s small but growing chain of family-friendly Pig hotels (see index).

Now a ‘gracious’ B&B, this restored Victorian train station and princely Pullman carriages on disused tracks ooze the romance of travel’s golden age.

‘A comfortable, cosy place with nice rooms to curl up in’, Sam and Janet Bakose’s 250-year-old inn stands on the A272 between Midhurst and Petworth, in the South Downs national park.

‘Opposite the walls of the castle in this ancient market town’, Lee and Katie Williams run their Grade II listed Regency town house as ‘a top-notch, great-value’ restaurant-with-rooms.

Tucked away in an Old Town cul-de-sac, a short stroll from the seafront, this early Tudor black-and-white house is run as a welcoming B&B.

Tourists should ‘forget fancy London hotels’, say readers, and instead head out to Ruth and Samantha Trinder’s hotel close to Richmond Park, with tranquil riverside garden and terrace.

Facing the ‘wide sweep of tidal mudflats’ surrounding Pagham Harbour, this whitewashed restaurant-with-rooms stands as a ‘tucked-away’ beacon of ‘delicious food’ and ‘exceptional hospitality’.

‘As wonderful as ever,’ writes a regular visitor to Sarah Burgoyne’s ‘charmingly run’ Grade II listed, red brick Georgian manor house adjoining a private estate, close to Lewes.

‘At night, surrounded by floodlit cedars and oaks, it felt like a movie set,’ writes one reader this year, after visiting the luxury New Forest retreat.

‘Great place. Wonderful breakfast.’ A thumbs-up this year from visitors to David and Barbara Shaw’s unusual B&B, at a decommissioned granite lighthouse in a ‘dramatic, empty landscape’, in the South Downs national park.

Far-reaching views across sheep-spotted countryside spool away from this ‘splendid’ 300-year-old malthouse-turned-restaurant-with-rooms above the Evenlode valley.

While smaller than some of its rural siblings, the second of Robin Hutson’s Pig hotels, tucked into Southampton’s medieval city walls, is certainly not the runt of the litter.

Charlotte and Justin Salisbury’s eclectic hotel distils relaxed, creative Brighton into a cool Regency town house.

‘Food-focussed readers will be happy’ at this red brick Chilterns restaurant-with-rooms that offers a ‘distinctive cooking style’.

That artful couple Justin and Charlotte Salisbury have transformed a 16th-century thatched village inn (albeit one that had a helipad) into the newest Residence in their small, quirky boutique hotel chain.

‘A truly wonderful place to stay,’ writes an approving guest, who savoured the 18th-century red brick pub as much as Greyhound regulars do their pints of Titanic Plum Porter.

On the outskirts of a picturesque Sussex village stands this ‘handsome, extensively enlarged’ old farmhouse, run by ‘friendly, attentive staff’.

A wisteria-festooned arch frames the entry to this prettily refurbished hotel, in a hilly Cotswold town.

A metamorphosis is underway on the edge of the New Forest: formerly TerraVina, this comfortable Victorian villa has a new name and a revamped style.