In gardens bordered by a stream, the Wild family’s hotel, converted from three 17th-century cottages, a stroll from its own quayside, has well-equipped, country-classic bedrooms, formal and informal dining in restaurant and brasserie.

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 name says it all: a place to skip along Camber Sands, enjoy backgammon in the bar, chill in the garden or relax with yoga – and with no children to disturb the peace.

One of Britain’s prettiest disused stations is today an excellent B&B, with bedrooms in the station building and restored Pullman coaches, cream teas served in the waiting room or on the platform, while breakfast is truly first class.

With ‘first-rate attention to detail’ and ‘efficient, helpful and delightful staff’, Olga and Alex Polizzi’s updating of a historic Tudor inn, in a medieval South Downs village, has undoubted star quality.

‘The perfect restaurant-with-rooms for lovers of British bubbles’, this recent addition to Robin Hutson’s Pig litter is surrounded by some of Britain’s best wine-making country and offers ‘plenty of fizz with your food’.

In restored Grade I listed woodland and lake gardens, an Italianate mansion is now home to a Michelin-starred restaurant with serenely beautiful bedrooms.

‘It would be beautiful in summer,’ said our inspectors, whose tour of this vineyard, on the slopes of the South Downs, was marred by rain.