Beyond a pristine, Greek Revival-style John Nash exterior, this family-friendly hotel, bursting with colour, has a glamorous basement pool, library, gym, treatment rooms and all-day bistro.

On a pedestrian street, steps from the Royal Opera House, this Georgian town house is home to four floors of individually styled bedrooms of character – and though they don't serve breakfast, Covent Garden abounds with places to eat and drink.

Guests are treated like royalty at this luxury hotel overlooking Buckingham Palace's grounds, with sophisticated chocolate-and-cream bedroom décor, marble bathrooms and opulent Grill Room.

A former diplomats' club in a quiet corner of Mayfair is today a high-end hotel, with plush bar, sleek bedrooms, spa treatments, concierge service, Michelin-starred restaurant and more informal bistro-style bar menu.

This is an exuberant, hip, modern hotel, from its residents-only roof terrace to buzzy basement bar, bedrooms decorated with a sense of fun, vast restaurant, spa and 1950s bowling alley.

Single, double, family room, boutique chic, contemporary simplicity or a wizard-themed basement 'chamber' accessed by a hidden door in a bookcase – take your pick at this smart but quirky hotel spread across imposing, stucco-fronted 19th-century town houses, where breakfast is served in the Pimlico Pantry, and they do a magical afternoon tea (but no fairy cakes!)

The epitome of Edwardian grand-hotel luxury, with its liveried doormen, dazzling interiors, glamorous bedrooms and Michelin-starred dining, the Goring is, for all its cachet, welcoming and unaffected, with an acres of garden at the rear.

The Doric porch and white stucco exterior of a handsome Victorian terrace town house on a leafy garden square gives no clue to the ultra-high-tech facilities and modern décor at this Pimlico hotel.

Eccentric, fun and colourful, this Pimlico town house in a leafy residential street is as much neighbourhood hangout and art gallery as a place to sleep and eat.

You can imagine nodding off in an armchair over the latest issue of Samuel Johnson's Idler, or William Hazlitt's polemics in the Tatler, when you step into this time-warp hotel and close the door on trendy Soho. It was here, on a Georgian terrace in the 1820s, that essayist Hazlitt penned his valediction, and antiques and furnishings keep faith with a bygone age.