‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.

‘We only called in for coffee, but were shown around by enthusiastic staff… and came away thinking what a wonderful place.’ A reader was impressed by this Georgian country house hotel, set back from the road, in lovely gardens.

Thatched cottages and sheep-dotted fields swaddle the single-track roads to this 17th-century mellow-stone Nadder valley house in an ‘unspoilt’ village.

At an ancient crossroads on the edge of the Fonthill Estate, Dan Brod and Charlie Luxton’s Georgian pub-with-rooms is a ‘popular, good-value’ spot.

Readers this year ‘ran out of superlatives’ after a ‘rather splendid visit’ to this thatched gastropub in ‘a delightful village’.

In a ‘quiet, wooded valley’, this thatched village pub had stood empty and decaying for more than seven years, when three villagers stepped in to rescue it.

‘Such a treat’. Wrapped by ‘gorgeous’ grounds, this revitalised 18th-century luxury hotel and amenity-packed spa girds the eastern Cotswolds.

The hub of the village, within trotting distance of the iconic white horse, this ‘impressive’ pub-with-rooms has much going on.

By the footpath skirting the Avon, this popular bar/restaurant-with-rooms occupies a Grade II listed building in a ‘delightful little town’.

On a working organic farm on the edge of the Wiltshire Downs, this quirky, affable pub-with-rooms reflects the vision of food ethics pioneer Helen Browning.

‘Little has changed over the centuries’ at this Tudor coaching inn in a National Trust village. Familiar to Harry Potter fans as the Babberton Arms, it was once home to Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

A 15-minute walk from the cathedral, the Street family’s ‘first-rate guest house’ provides good-value B&B accommodation.

Sophisticated yet unpretentious, this ivy-wrapped pub-with-rooms in the depths of Thomas Hardy country ‘entices’ with classic British grub and rustic chic bedrooms.

Handsome and historic, this buzzy pub-with-rooms (owned by Butcombe Brewery) has character to spare.