An Edwardian hunting lodge, rumoured to have been a 1960s MI6 training centre, is today a welcoming country house hotel where guests wake to glorious views over Exmoor. It doesn’t take a spook to reveal that its success is due to ‘caring and friendly’ hosts John and Jane Bradley. ‘They encourage a degree of informality,’ writes a reader, whose walking group stays every year, ‘but there is nothing casual about the way they run the hotel.’ Traditionally styled and furnished bedrooms include two dog-friendly suites (one with four-poster) with a separate lounge. All rooms have fresh milk, a cafetière or espresso machine, luxury toiletries. In the Coleridge restaurant, with view to the Coleridge Way, John’s ‘outstanding’ regularly changing menus with nightly twists bring such ‘memorable dishes’ as ‘wild boar terrine, quince jam, toasted ciabatta; Exmoor honey-roasted duck breast, truffle mash, raspberry infused red cabbage’; ‘a tiramisu to die for’. Wines are supplied by prestigious merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd, where Jane worked for 15 years. Devotees will be sad to hear that at the time of the Guide going to press, the hotel was on the market. (Andrew Butterworth, JA, MC)