The Coach House at Middleton Lodge

Not so much a hotel as a grand country estate, The Coach House has bedrooms in cottages, former stables and outbuildings, a restaurant and 200 acres to explore. The setting is glorious, say readers of the gardens, woodland and walled kitchen garden. James Allison and his wife, Rebecca, have turned his family’s estate into a 21st-century retreat with relaxed but chic bedrooms – beams, soft colours, vintage and rustic furnishings. Some have a garden or patio, several have hot tubs, one opens on to the potager. All have modern bathrooms, most with a roll-top bath. (The Palladian main house can also be rented.) Georgian Richmond and the Yorkshire Dales are nearby, or simply stay put and take a spa treatment. The all-day Coach House restaurant, in a double-height room, offers dishes such as chalk-stream trout with wild garlic pasta, and roast pork belly with smoked potato. Or you can eat in the courtyard if sunny. Home-grown produce guarantees plenty of vegetarian dishes. A second tasting-menu restaurant opens in spring 2022. ‘The food is so good, and the place itself is so special.’ (Polly Taylor)