It’s all about the views at this former 19th-century mine captain’s house turned dog-friendly hotel on a hillside on the Devon/Cornwall border. The restaurant, the Italianate patio and many of the bedrooms look over five acres of gardens and the Tamar valley and beyond, to Bodmin Moor. ‘Our room took full advantage of the glorious views,’ relates one trusted reader. ‘The setting feels very far from the madding crowd,’ writes another. Inside, it’s a mix of contemporary and traditional, depending whether your room is in the main house, newly built annexe or coach house where ‘decor is distinctive, perhaps a little dated but all in excellent condition’. In the dining room, Ashley Wright’s locally sourced dishes might be ‘a bit overwrought’ for some, and the approach to vegetables ‘a bit nouvelle’, but a regular visitor found that it ‘had improved enormously, with healthy portion sizes; quality remains of the highest standard’. ‘Breakfast at a window table 
is a delightful experience on a fine spring day.’ ‘The place is very well run.’ (Peter Anderson, Lindsay Hunt)