‘The lodging-houses at Bablicome are magnificent to be seen, And the accommodation there would suit either king or queen.’ William Topaz McGonagall extols the beauties of Babbacombe, where Lana de Savary’s hotel sits just above the beach, at the foot of a wooded corniche road.

‘The drama of dinner is played out in fine style’ at Tracy and Galton Blackiston’s ‘gorgeous’ restaurant-with-rooms in a coastal village.

There is much to fire the young imagination at this 17th-century manor house above Chesil beach, the setting for John Meade Falkner’s 1898 tale of smuggling, Moonfleet.

‘An eligible, self-contained gentleman’s residence, very unique. . . with every modern convenience. . .’ So Kenneth Graham describes Toad Hall, which he modelled on this Victorian mansion, a baroque extravaganza with sumptuous interiors, overlooking the Fowey estuary.

At the end of a long drive past rustic cabins, a helipad and a forest-fringed meadow, this 21st-century rebuild of a Georgian lodge is a ‘highly professional, near faultless’ modern country house hotel.

Families have ‘a grand time’ at this 16th-century manor house with spa, in ‘lovely manicured grounds’.