‘We had a great time at this Boris Johnson of hotels (pretends to be bumbling, actually hugely professional),’ say guests this year of the Fletcher-Brewer family’s ‘lovely, wacky’ hotel overlooking Cardigan Bay.

‘I had an excellent stay.’ In a ‘dramatically beautiful’ setting on the Wild Atlantic Way, Frances Kelly-McSweeney’s hotel wins praise for its ‘comfortable’ rooms, its ‘local and freshly prepared’ meals and its ‘cosy’ atmosphere.

An unusual Georgian house in wooded grounds, sitting above a meander in the River Forss, Ian and Sabine Richards’s hotel was once home to Major CRE Radclyffe – author, game hunter, falconer. The eccentric crenellated entrance hall was built for him as a trophy room.