This quintessential English country house with spa, pools, kids' club, elegant bedrooms and fun tree houses, hits all the right luxurious notes for a romantic or family stay.

You can paddleboard on the river, stroll to see the deer in Richmond Park, and feel a world away from central London at this smart, multifaceted Thames-side hotel.

East Coast America meets South Coast England at this single-storey, coastal-chic hotel with interesting room choices, good, locally sourced food, and uncrowded sandy beach just over the spectacular dunes.

A New Forest bolt-hole, this country house hotel has an easy glamour, romantic and family-friendly rooms, heart-warming Italian food and top-notch spa.

With 'nothing in between to Canada', this pretty blue-and-white weatherboarded farmhouse-turned-hotel which sits above a secluded cove on Bryher's rugged west-facing coast is a 'very special and distinctive place', say guests.

Country-house luxury abounds at this child-friendly, dog-friendly hotel, a Georgian mansion, its ‘well-maintained gardens a huge joy to visit’.

This modest Georgian house, built for the Earl and Countess of Poulett, has been much extended since Jane Austen visited and fell in love with Lyme.

'Hotel settings don't get much more spectacular than the Polurrian's, on the cliff edge overlooking its own beach,' writes a guide insider. The relaxed family and dog-friendly hotel makes the most of the coastal views.

This Victorian gothic mansion might appear a little forbidding, but step inside and you are overwhelmed by a warm ambience and beautiful interiors, while some guests choose to sleep out in the woods in a timber-lined 'hive' or tree house.

Alluringly re-designed, this Georgian mansion set back from the High Street in a smart Huddersfield suburb, is brimming with distinctive spaces in which to sit, drink and dine.

A 'sprawling, traditional building in a beautiful setting' at the tip of Windermere, this family and dog-friendly hotel has easy access to lake-based activities as well as a spa.

The only pub on this family-owned, car-free island, the New Inn has smart contemporary interiors alongside plenty of innate charm.

Much altered since it was begun in 1695, the Cunliffe-Lister family's neo-Gothic, castellated fantasy castle is 'a very special place, grand and imposing', in 'simply glorious' pleasure grounds and parkland.

A favourite hangout of the England football team, the former home of Lord Louis Mountbatten is 'well-run', with contemporary bedrooms, cosseting suites, a good choice of eating and drinking spaces, and a magnificent spa.

Designers have let rip to create this fun, friendly and affordable hotel on a 150-acres estate, with an Alice in Wonderland vibe, occupying new and repurposed farm buildings, with a wide choice of rooms and suites, a cocktail bar and a restaurant serving pub classics and fancier dishes.

Koos Bekker and Karen Roos have brought to Somerset the vision behind their hotel on a Dutch Cape wine estate, creating an idyll around Palladian Hadspen manor house, with farm-to-fork dining, dreamy spa, unique rooms in converted outbuildings, beautiful gardens – and a Roman villa as well as two interactive museums.

All the bases are covered for a fun, relaxing family escape at this Jacobean manor house, which has a crèche, cinema, spa, pools, comfortable country house-style bedrooms, and formal and informal dining.

Amid gardens, native woodland and meadow, this 16th-century manor house is today a family-friendly hotel and spa with contemporary comforts and a choice of formal and informal dining.

An iconic white Victorian hotel on a cliff-top is today a dog- and family-friendly hotel with spa, outdoor pool, informal bar dining, and more ambitious cooking in the Atlantic View restaurant.

Once a retreat for Lord Beaverbrook, this Victorian mansion, filled with fascinating memorabilia, is home to chic contemporary bedrooms, a fine-dining restaurant, Japanese grill, library, cinema and spa.

'Absolutely faultless from the moment we arrived', Malcolm and Patricia Lewis's manor-house hotel (Relais & Châteaux) sits in landscaped gardens with a lake and specimen trees.

Set on a 300-acre working farm, this legendary Irish country-house hotel has grown from being a restaurant with rooms that is passionate about locally sourced food into a thriving business, with cookery school, café and arts venue.

'Treehouses, boathouses and shepherds' huts are scattered around 70 acres of glorious grounds on the Consall Hall Estate at this deconstructed, dog-friendly hotel.

In 'a lovely location', with riverside terraces, and Hampton Court across the road, the flagship venture for Hector Ross's Signet Collection received our inspectors' endorsement.

A Regency mansion in parkland, once home to Percy Shelley's mother, has been reimagined as a contemporary country house hotel infused with a blithe spirit.

A 'paradise for foodies and garden lovers in a tranquil corner of Aberdeenshire', this country-house hotel in the fertile Howe of Cromar is an architectural gem.

Against the backdrop of Stag Fell, with views over Wensleydale, this many-gabled stone-built retreat offers the perfect country house escape, with antiques, comfy armchairs, warm hospitality and modern cooking of local ingredients.

In 2013, Carole Bamford acquired the wisteria-draped, Cotswold stone, 18th-century Tollgate Inn and took it back to the bones, before complete refurbishment,

Garden suites with hot tubs, a state-of-the-art spa, brightly coloured sofas under gleaming chandeliers . . . this country house hotel offers luxury with a contemporary edge.

A Scandi makeover has transformed this 19th-century manse, overlooking the Kyle of Tongue, into an environmentally aware boutique hotel with the feel of a design and art enthusiast's home.