The herb garden is a major draw at this Georgian country house hotel set amid lawns, orchards and woodlands close to Sandringham.

After more than 50 years, this country house hotel and spa on the edge of the New Forest still sets the standard for luxury.

‘We couldn’t have enjoyed it more or been more welcome,’ write trusted Guide correspondents this year, after dropping by at Keith Makepeace’s long-established, family-run hotel with views across National Trust coastline to the open sea.

'Tis a very pritty place,' wrote the diarist and former resident, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. After visiting the National Trust’s red brick mansion, Guide readers happily concur.

‘Without exception the house and its antique contents are fabulous; it’s an absolute gem,’ wrote a long-term Guide reader after visiting the National Trust hotel overlooking Snowdonia.

Lawns run down to a sandy beach on the shores of Lough Swilly from this engaging country house, built for a Bishop in 1760 and enlarged by serial extensions.

‘Old-fashioned in all the best ways’, ‘a Cornish jewel’, ‘a real joy – almost a privilege – to stay there’; complements rained down from trusted readers after visits to Toby Ashworth’s hotel on the Roseland Peninsula.

Having hosted everyone from Chaplin to Churchill, this ‘superbly refurbished’ Italianate mansion seduces visitors with the prospect of ‘luxurious country house living’.

‘They just keep making it better every year,’ writes a trusted correspondent, of this luxurious country house hotel in Lakeland countryside.

‘We much enjoyed our stay,’ writes a reader this year, of this Edwardian country house hotel in ‘grounds of a sporty nature’.

The Cave family’s holiday hotel overlooking Cardigan Bay is ‘very much family orientated, and the facilities are excellent – indoor pool, putting green, games room, beach across the road.’

Steeped in history, this ‘wonderfully civilised’ coastal Georgian mansion combines ‘style, luxury and high standards’.

‘The physical ambience and sea coast views are wonderful,’ write trusted readers, of this spa hotel overlooking bay and village on the Pembrokeshire coast.

In springtime, the drive up to Jan and Adam Moore’s 18th-century former sporting lodge is ‘lined with young trees in blossom, bulbs everywhere’.

At the end of a ‘precipitous, twisty descent’, ‘courageous’ visitors are rewarded with ‘unrestricted views and a genuine, good-humoured welcome’ at Lana de Savary’s ‘fabulously secluded’ cliff-face hotel.

A grand little handful of Georgian terraces combines into Patricia Roberts’s lovingly restored, ‘elegant’ town house hotel.

An easy-going atmosphere and oodles of character filter through Charles Lowther’s dramatic ancestral home.

‘A beautiful location, lovely gardens, good food and friendly service – and a view from our room that was probably the best we have ever enjoyed.’

‘There are chandeliers all over’ at Christa and Ian Taylor’s latest addition to the Bath hotel scene – the old Carfax, run formerly by the Salvation Army, now spiffed up to the nines, with the addition of a small spa.

When the only aim is to relax, the Robinson family’s cosseting Jacobean manor house is happy to oblige.

‘Beautifully located’ on the South West Coastal Path, this former Edwardian gentleman’s retreat has clifftop views of the three-mile-long beach.

On a wonderfully scenic perch above Windermere, Tracey Robinson and Joanna Harbottle’s 19th-century stone-and-slate country house is a 'very welcoming’ retreat.

Standing right on the quay overlooking estuary and salt marshes, in a coastal village of flint cottages, gift shops and galleries, Emma Stannard’s hotel is ideal for outdoorsy family holidays.

‘As soon as we arrived the kids got started on the Woolley Grange Sheep Challenge treasure hunt,’ writes a Guide insider after a stay at this ‘beautiful Jacobean manor house in lovely grounds’.