‘A cheerful, likeable hotel’, this ‘stunning’ William and Mary mansion stands in Italianate parkland, with easy access to the city centre. Built in 1699 with an eye on Wren’s Hampton Court, it was rescued and restored by the National Trust in the 1980s. An oak staircase sweeps upwards from the entrance hall; the ‘grand public rooms’ (‘seriously comfortable for pre- and post-dinner gin-and-tonics’) are filled with antiques and fine pictures. Bedrooms, fittingly, are traditional – ‘old-fashioned’, some say – and decorated with not a few frilly valances. ‘I felt, at first, as if I were visiting a rich grandmother at her country pile. But I came to appreciate my high-ceilinged room, whose well-coordinated decor suited the hotel’s ethos.’ There’s a spa in a ‘lovely brick cottage’ (‘where some rejuvenation wouldn’t go amiss’), but wander in the ‘well-cared-for gardens’ instead – ‘there are lots of corners to explore’. Dinner is ‘nice, without being cordon bleu’ – perhaps lamb loin, ricotta, wild garlic – ‘and the chefs offer to rustle up an alternative if you fancy something different’. ‘Breakfast provides all the choice you need.’ The A64 rumbles close by. (Anthony Bradbury, Michael Gwinnell, and others)