‘This hotel is amazingly charming.’ A reader was delighted this year by a stay at this 16th-century priory-turned-hotel, ‘in a beautiful location’ beside the church and the River Frome. The main house’s ‘steep, narrow’ stairs lead to individually styled bedrooms, but there are ground-floor rooms too (and in the Boathouse). A junior suite was ‘quite large, well furnished in a rather old-fashioned way’, with fresh milk in the minibar, an ‘excellent walk-in shower’. The main house’s Purbeck Suite has a walk-in shower and a high-sided copper bath judged a triumph of style over substance. Tea is served by ‘polite, helpful’ staff on the terrace or in a ‘large, beamed drawing room with log fire’ and comfy seating. In the much-admired ‘light, modern’ Garden restaurant, ‘overlooking the attractive garden and river’, Stephan Guinebault’s ‘truly excellent’ set menus include such locally sourced dishes as West Country duck, blackcurrant mustard cream potato, roasted fig, sugar snap peas, red wine jus. ‘The Grand Marnier soufflé was so good I had it two days running.’ Breakfast brings freshly squeezed juices, kippers, smoked salmon. ‘We just have to go back.’ (John GP Barnes, Bill Bennett)