‘A hotel with heart and soul’, this long-time favourite overlooking Cardigan Bay has been ‘well run’ by the Cave family and ‘unfailingly cheerful’ staff for more than a century.

Pheasants scatter on the lawn around this Italianate mansion standing ‘proudly’ by the River Usk, where Guide inspectors in 2016 found ‘a fine house filled with warm, amiable staff’.

‘Everything is exquisite’ at this ‘very welcoming’ country house retreat (Relais & Châteaux), where goldfinches, song thrushes and blackbirds flit about the ‘beautiful’ grounds leading to a vast bird reserve.

Meadows, mountains and Michelin-starred meals attract visitors to Susan and Bryan Webb’s ‘lovely’, rural restaurant-with-rooms, in a mellow-stone Georgian gentry house.

‘Exceptionally welcoming’, ‘traditional but not stuffy’, this B&B wins applause from Guide readers who enjoy the relaxed, friendly atmosphere and the ‘well-informed’ staff (‘several of whom are family’).

There’s ‘birdsong in the air’ and ‘a great atmosphere of peace’ at this ‘glorious’ country house hotel, in large gardens descending to the River Wye, say Guide inspectors.

‘I’d be very happy if this were my local,’ says a Guide inspector in 2016, of the Inkin brothers’ ‘charming’ pub-with-rooms.