Behind the golden-stone facade of two mansions, at the centre of Bath’s magnificent Georgian crescent, lies a luxurious hotel with an oasis garden.

An ancient, honey-stone priest’s house turned hotel in a pretty market town has been given a chic make-over as a restaurant-with-rooms.

Pink without and peachy within, this Queen Anne-style mansion, in a rural hamlet with views to the Malvern hills, has been owned by the Hine family since 1978.

The Empress of Blandings among Robin Hutson’s Pig hotels (see index), this honey-stone Elizabethan manor house in the Otter valley is reached by a mile-long carriage drive.

In one of England’s most perfect medieval villages, this timber-framed house may show the world a handsome Georgian face but within, it is all beams and slanted ceilings.

There is an outdoorsy, tally-ho vibe about Charles Bowman’s rural inn on the banks of the River Hodder, with views to the Forest of Bowland.

‘I would love to keep it to myself, but I thought I should share the good news.

From the moment your car is valet-parked and luggage whisked to your room, you know this honeyed Cotswold manor house will deliver cosseting luxury – and star-spangled dining.

A dazzling array of hanging baskets bedecks this friendly pub-with-rooms, occupying three former miners’ cottages in a Chew valley hamlet.

On the doorstep of the Westonbirt Arboretum with 2,500 species of trees, and just round the corner from Highgrove, the Hare and Hounds sits in its own gardens and woodlands in a pretty corner of the Cotswolds.

Wrapped in parkland, this gleaming white country house that is only ten minutes from the city centre takes luxury to hedonistic levels, with lavish decorations and indulgent service.

Blending 12th-century stone origins with 21st-century country-inn comforts, plus robust food, this handsome hotel attracts walkers and weekenders.

Tumbling down cliffs overlooking Falmouth Bay, Olga Polizzi’s glowing white Tresanton shows how to put style into a family-friendly seaside hotel – at a price.

Ferries no longer skim across Loch Glendhu to Kylestrome, but you can still watch the day’s catch being landed on the slipway, from Tanja Lister and Sonia Virechauveix’s 17th-century coaching inn turned award-winning hotel.

Overlooking the green in a Cotswolds village, and decked with hanging baskets, this pretty pub-with-rooms was in the doldrums before two local families took it on and spruced it up.

On the edge of the North Yorkshire moors, this postcard-perfect thatched village pub continues to delight with its Michelin-starred cooking and quirky bedrooms.

Dogs love this dining-pub-with-rooms, between the Black mountains and the Brecon Beacons, as much as their two-legged friends do.

‘Staying here was an experience,’ wrote Guide inspectors of Nick Dent’s Georgian farmhouse hotel, which is so dog-friendly it even hosts doggie birthday parties, and where creative reuse has been raised to an art form.

What could be lovelier than to take breakfast on the terrace of Malcolm Herring’s small hotel, gazing over the harbour, or to sip a Blue Hayes Colada at sunset? This is an exclusive place (no dogs, no tiny tots, no walk-ins), done out in seaside blues and creams, with the garden gate leading to the Coast Path and Porthminster Beach.

Tables are set for some seriously good dining at Andrew and Gaynor Riley’s restaurant-with-rooms, occupying the former showroom of Sir Gordon Russell, wartime pioneer of utility furniture, in a picture-postcard Cotswold village.

In the heart of the South Downs national park, this 18th-century inn is a well-judged mix of friendly local and restaurant-with-rooms.

You get the best of both worlds here: although it’s in the city suburbs just a ten-minute drive from the centre, Jesmond Dene House, named after the lush wooded valley it overlooks, ‘feels as if it’s in the country’.

In a quietly beautiful area of the Lake District – the lovely Lyth valley – this smart village inn has a deserved reputation for good food and cosseting bedrooms.

You can mess about in boats with a fishing rod, sip a pint of bitter in the sunshine or enjoy classic gastropub fare at this cheerful pub-with-rooms beside the Thames, with moorings that are free to guests.

You drive over moors on a near-deserted road to reach Charles and Edmund Inkin’s relaxed, informal dining-pub-with-rooms on Cornwall’s Atlantic coast.

‘The house is beautiful, the garden is glorious,’ writes a reader this year, after a return visit to Sarah Burgoyne’s Georgian farmhouse, so handy for Glyndebourne.

You can drink a cocktail on the sun terrace at Susie and Will Daniel’s stay-and-play youthful, family-friendly hotel, and see when surf’s up on Summerleaze Beach below.

Golden stone abuts Tudor black-and-white at this historic hotel, which has a large terrace for alfresco dining overlooking a picture-postcard village green.

With her infectious laugh and ready endearments, hostess Lorraine Willoughby is the life and soul of this gastropub-with-rooms in a friendly rural village, but there is much besides to like.

Take a historic village inn, then reinvent it as a dining-pub-with-rooms, in shabby-chic style, for the modern era.

Seafaring readers anchored at Arinagour to seek a shower and dinner at the social hub of ‘a beautiful island with spectacular beaches, dark-sky park and wonderful wildlife’.

With a free jukebox, Art Deco piano, loyalty cards and children’s menus, this dog-friendly 18th-century inn is truly a community hub.

This Edwardian hunting lodge with a veranda from which to gaze out to the highest point on Exmoor, or at the starry black sky, is today a ‘delightful, well-managed’ hotel, run by owners John and Jane Bradley.

On the edge of Salisbury Plain not far from Stonehenge, this thatched 19th-century beer house is run as a friendly village local and Michelin-starred pub-with-rooms by chef/proprietors Guy and Brittany Manning.

Fallow deer roam parkland around a part-Georgian house that has been converted into one of the Pig hotels in Robin Hutson’s Home Grown collection (see index).

A higgledy-piggledy 19th-century marine villa with a jumble of towers and gables gazes across Studland Bay to the chalk stacks of Old Harry Rocks.

Behind the facade of an Edwardian villa, Scandi chic prevails in this multi-award-winning hotel.

London’s only Relais & Châteaux hotel sprawls over four red brick Victorian town houses built by Lord Chelsea, its sleeping quarters reached by a warren of staircases and hallways and serviced by a ‘very old-fashioned lift’.

Fish and chips within sound of the waves, local crab and lobster, and the day’s catch cooked over charcoal are among the attractions at this expanded pub in a small village overlooking Start Bay.

A great leap of imagination carried Alice and Jade Calliva from a Croydon flat to the 18th-century coaching inn with spectacular views across the loch to Schiehallion, the local Munro.