Sigrid Grawert is a welcoming hostess at her smart B&B in a village eight miles from Oxford, offering stylish contemporary bedrooms, an award-winning breakfast with a speciality porridge menu, and a suntrap garden.

Between the Thames and Windrush, this 17th-century pub blends all the charm of a traditional village local with rugs on flagstone floors, comfy sofas and log-burner, country-chic bedrooms including the impressive four-poster Blenheim Suite, and gastropub cooking in the atmospheric dining room.

A family and dog-friendly 18th-century inn with riverside gardens in the Vale of the White Horse, this is now part of Butcombe Boutique Hotels, which has refurbished the six bedrooms with botanical and Arts and Crafts wallpapers, king-size beds, vintage pieces and Bramley toiletries. Menus mix sharing plates, pub favourites and some more adventurous dishes.

A fourth venture for Justin and Charlotte Salisbury, this 16th-century beamed farmhouse-cum-local, a former haunt of Dylan Thomas's, has a range of highly individual rooms, mostly in outbuilding with outdoor seating, as well as larky modern art, upcycled, recycled and vintage furniture, a restaurant and bar serving pub food with a difference.

The red-and-white candy-striped parasols outside this wisteria-swagged foodie pub with beautifully styles rooms send an irresistible message: come in, it’s fun.

Jeremy Mogford's conversion of the old Barclays Bank right in the city centre gets credit for its smartly furnished bedrooms, marble bathrooms, and an art-adorned all-day bistro, Quod, in the old banking hall, with Italian garden terrrace.

Old-world atmosphere and contemporary comforts are in perfect balance at Jeremy Mogford's 17th-century stone country house in the city, handy for all that Oxford has to offer, and with an eclectic art collection, intimate restaurant, walled dining terrace, and immaculate bedrooms, some with outdoor space.

An 18th-century coaching inn renamed to honour past farrier landlords, the former Maytime, a sister venture to Daylesford Organic farm, is a community hub a short stroll from the River Windrush, with simple, chic ground-floor bedrooms, a menu of rustic seasonal dishes and pub classics, a rear terrace and walled garden.

Saved from closure by film producer Tim Bevan and his artist wife, Amy Gadney, this honeyed-stone 17th-century village pub reopened in the summer of 2020, with a cosy bar, beautiful rustic-chic bedrooms, very superior pub grub and a full calendar of events.