‘A wonderful reminder of the delight a well-run, imaginative hotel can offer,’ reads one of many good reports of this family-friendly hotel with shimmering vistas over estuary and salt marsh.

Agatha Christie memorabilia, murder mystery weekends and Art Deco touches set the tone at this creeper-clad hotel, former home of doctor friends of Christie, in a bustling market town.

As ringed plovers and pink-footed geese flock to Snettisham’s shingle beaches, lagoons, tidal mudflats and cattle-grazed salt marsh, so happy families and their dogs flock to Jeannette and Anthony Goodrich’s friendly pub.

You don’t have to blow a fortune to stay at this ‘relaxed yet refined’ hotel in converted barns, former home of Langham Glass, with many fun nods to its heritage.

Just the place for watching a Friday-evening cricket match, this 17th-century inn faces the village green.

On the north Norfolk coast, Thornham’s saltmarshes and unspoiled beaches are a paradise for birdwatchers and walkers. Every bit as blissful, is this chic bolthole with a garden hot tub near the town’s artisan shops, restaurants and pubs.

There is ‘an air of a chic curiosity shop’ about this singular hotel with café/deli, centred on a Palladian-style villa, up a narrow lane, where resident cats sun themselves on the front lawn. As the Guide went to press, Stratton’s announced it was being sold.