Fiona and Paul Robinson’s New England-inspired hotel, with ‘magnificent views over Gerrans Bay’, ticked all the boxes for a reader this year, from the ‘wonderful people’ to ‘food that is too good to be true’.

Just off the beach, the only pub on Robert Dorrien-Smith’s private, car-free island is a ‘relaxed’ gathering place for locals and holidaymakers alike.

‘As well as being a “grand” hotel, the Balmoral is a very nice hotel – the two not necessarily being the same thing,’ say regular readers about this Edinburgh icon.

Grand from every direction, this ‘very smart’ Grade II listed hotel is in a ‘central location that can hardly be bettered if you’re keen to be in the thick of things’.

In a quiet Mayfair cul-de-sac, this sophisticated hotel (Althoff Collection) houses silkily decorated bedrooms, a Michelin-starred restaurant, and a plush, velvet-seated bistro and bar.

Paul Kitching and Katie O’Brien’s well-regarded restaurant-with-rooms occupies a finely refurbished Georgian town house facing the Royal Terrace Gardens.

‘Distinctly cool’, this City hotel is liked for its ‘friendly staff’, ‘beautiful rooms’ and ‘tasty breakfasts’.

It’s not just in the two-Michelin-starred restaurant of Raymond Blanc’s honey-stone Oxfordshire hotel (Relais & Châteaux) that you get great attention to detail: in the bedrooms, even the sugared almonds are colour coded according to the decor.

There is modern art everywhere in the chichi bar at this boutique hotel in William Playfair’s palace-fronted Georgian terrace.