‘A quintessential country house hotel.’ The Quinion family’s creeper-covered manor house in mature grounds ‘combines the familiar features and decor of an earlier age with exceptional service’, writes a Guide reader, a frequent guest, in 2017. ‘Barry Quinion, his wife, Lynne, and sister, Helen, are true innkeepers who take pride in their hotel. Barry presides over the kitchen, producing wonderful food; Helen and Lynne welcome guests as long-lost friends returning home.’ Traditionally furnished sitting rooms are filled with the comforts of a cherished private house: paintings, wide sofas, a careful selection of ornaments. Generously sized bedrooms, each different, have comfy seating and garden views. Tall windows in the dining room look over lawns to an ornamental lake. A single dinner sitting, at 8 pm, brings a daily-changing menu of ‘beautifully cooked and presented’ dishes, perhaps smoked chicken, wild mushroom and spring onion risotto, white truffle; wild sea bass fillet, crushed new potatoes, green olives, pesto. Breakfast – a sit-down affair – offers plenty of choice, from half a grapefruit to the full English, via kippers, smoked salmon and omelettes. (Chris Savory)