‘It’s up there with the top hotels we’ve stayed at,’ writes a reader this year of Sue and James Murray’s romantic rebuild of a Jacobean manor house, surrounded by parkland. Today a ‘wonderful hotel’, it contains a wealth of historic features imported by the Revd Sabine Baring-Gould (best known for penning the hymn ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’), who transformed ‘Lew House’ over 30 years from 1881 – look out for Renaissance woodwork, a Jacobean ceiling, a Rococo fireplace. The Murrays have filled the ‘beautiful’ public rooms with antiques, books and paintings; bedrooms are a mix of traditional and contemporary. ‘All the rooms are attractive’: St Gertrude has an ornate ceiling and mullioned windows; the four-poster bed in Melton once belonged to Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria. After fireside canapés, head into the dining room, where portraits look down from panelled walls over Matthew Peryer’s ‘delicious food’. Characteristic dishes: Brixham mackerel, garden beetroot, apple and horseradish salad; roasted Devon beef fillet, broccoli, girolles, watercress purée. Breakfast is generous and varied. ‘It’s family owned, which gives it a special feel.’ (RB, and others)