There's a huge sense of fun at this stylish hotel, whose logo is Vanity Fair's caricature of the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, Oscar Wilde's Nemesis.

The Ollerod (Dorset dialect for cowslip), with boutique rooms and a dabster in the kitchen, is the perfect place for a bit’ a’ drap when you’re hungry and athirt.

In a quiet corner of Cumbria, close to Hadrian’s Wall, this long-established hotel exudes the traditional comforts of a country house but with a modern elegance.

Ducks glide on a pond and guests take tea in front of this beautifully proportioned Queen Anne-style mansion in a hamlet between the Cotswolds and the Mendip hills.

Readers paint an appealing picture of a stay at this characterful timber-frame manor house in deepest Constable country, where residential art courses are a big draw.

The Milsom family’s Victorian country house hotel in Dedham Vale, in the heart of Constable country, has been subtly rebranded with the addition of a spa by the pool house.

Deep in the Sussex countryside, a romantic Elizabethan manor house, built by an ironmaster for his bride, stands amid 1,000 acres of historically important gardens, pleasure grounds and woodland.

The Gloriana of Robin Hutson’s Pig hotel collection (see index), this Grade I listed Elizabethan beauty stands in 'wonderful grounds in a special location' in the peaceful Otter valley.

‘There is a timeless elegance to Raymond Blanc’s gorgeous country house hotel, where English–French relations reach a deliciously stylish entente cordiale,’ say Guide insiders.

Cranes, container ships, Holland-bound ferries . . . The views from this quayside Victorian hotel with its striking iron-lace balcony overlooking the Stour and Orwell estuaries, are ocean-going, stirring, never dull.

With tall chimneys, multiple gables, vast mullioned windows and sprawling terraces this Yorkshire country house is the real deal, but with a delightfully friendly touch.

A 'playful, quirky hotel', in a traditional honey-stone building, Homewood is 'full of eclectic eccentricity'.

Creature comforts are assured at this Franglais-style hotel and restaurant in a Georgian-fronted medieval house on the market square of a charming old wool town.

A ‘stunning Jacobean building’ is, astonishingly, largely the creation of Victorian squire, parson and prolific author the Revd Sabine Baring-Gould.

If you can't get enough of the freshest of seafood at this restaurant-with-rooms, you can learn to prepare your own lobster for grilling and the perfect hollandaise sauce at Rick Stein's cookery school across the road.

Swathed with creepers and bedecked with flowers, this wildly atmospheric B&B stands on a cobbled street in a medieval citadel with views over Romney Marsh.

For more than 40 years the Prideaux-Brune family have welcomed guests to their ancestral Jacobean manor house in an English country garden with the Divelish stream skipping through.

Overlooking the River Hodder in the Forest of Bowland, this sprawling 18th-century manor house is joyously traditional, with stone-flagged floors, open fires and bags of atmosphere.

Guide readers are unswervingly loyal to this family-friendly country house by the sea, with peerless views to Snowdonia across Cardigan Bay, run by the Fletcher-Brewer family since opening in 1948.

‘Blessed to be in the beautiful Cothi valley, surrounded by Brechfa Forest’, this 16th-century country house hotel has the feeling of a private home.

The ferry from Oban brings you to the sole hotel on a beautiful island of fine sandy beaches, heather-clad hills, wild goats, ancient woodland, peat bogs and tidal flats.

Overlooking the sea towards Mull, this homely hotel on the Hebridean island of Iona has a deserved reputation for its warm welcome, fresh and creative food, and restorative peace.

With porte cochère, crenellated tower and fine Victorian interiors, this country house overlooking Loch Portree is redolent of the history of the Macdonald family.

'Very quiet and peaceful' on the shores of Loch Sunart, this family-friendly and dog-friendly country house has an 'exceptional location'.

Scottish culture and celebration are at the heart of the Urquhart family’s hotel, café, bar and restaurant near the ferry terminal in a fishing town and former herring port on Loch Broom.

Solitary Nephin, Ireland's highest stand-alone mountain, provides a dramatic backdrop to this classic, pink-washed Georgian country house in wooded grounds on Lough Conn.

On a historic estate once home to the O’Donels – a factious crew, by all accounts, transported here by Cromwell – Kieran Thompson’s creeper-clad Georgian house has long been a fishing destination.

‘We enjoyed a walk in the extensive grounds with the hotel’s biodiversity champion,’ write readers on a visit to this legendary Irish country house hotel that is passionate about locally sourced food.

Roses ramble over honey stone and wisteria cascades around stone mullioned casements at this Cotswolds country house hotel, with spa, gym, cinema and ‘luxury’ written all over it.

The long drive is worth it to this edge-of-the-world location, where a Georgian manse, with pretty, traditional rooms and superb food, overlooks a long sandy beach.

Rambling roses and brimming hanging baskets adorn ‘the Carps’, a friendly local pub-with-rooms in a hamlet 25 minutes from Bath.

If you want a hotel with hi-tech wizardry and hot tubs, this place is not for you, but ‘if you are happy with traditional hospitality’ and ‘like to be cosseted, Howtown Hotel will do nicely’.

Seen through walls of windows, the sea is a huge presence at this family-run hotel ‘in a fabulous location’ on the cliffs above a surfers' beach.

Perfectly placed next to Westonbirt National Arboretum, this Victorian Cotswold stone hotel offers a relaxed family- and dog-friendly break.

In a small rural village in the White Peak area, this Grade II* listed 17th-century country house is run as a hotel with warmth and heart.

With peacocks in the garden, kilt-wearing staff, fire-warmed sitting rooms and antiques at every turn, this 17th-century country house is an indulgent experience.

The picture-perfect setting of this honey-stone hotel, with its courtyard garden and views over the village pond, has all the ingredients for a restorative stay.

‘A stunning Georgian building with wonderful grounds’, this 1820s mansion has been run as a hotel by ‘lovely, friendly’ hosts Susannah and Stuart Macpherson since 2003.

There is ‘an air of a chic curiosity shop’ about this singular hotel with café/deli, centred on a Palladian-style villa, up a narrow lane, where resident cats sun themselves on the front lawn.

A loyal following of guests returns time and again to this 17th-century house, with stone-mullioned windows in 'a lovely quiet location, with nice gardens'.