'A really nice place to stay, in a lovely quiet village setting,' this beautifully renovated 17th-century thatched inn lives anew as a local pub with rooms. Manager Claire Lenkowiec and chef Valerio Grimaldi-Plant run the show for the owners and, by George, they get it right!

Step into this 400-year-old inn and you find all the hoped-for buzz and beams and ambience, but you might not guess how beautifully the bedrooms have been styled (first-floor Great Tew is the showpiece), while the menu mixes superior pub classics with more modern cooking.

A romantic Elizabethan-style Edwardian mansion, built for a Manchester cotton bleacher and set in landscaped gardens, is the epitome of a well-run country-house hotel.

With beams, cottage-style bedrooms and beautiful gardens running down to the River Stour, this 16th-century Cotswold manor house in pretty South Warwickshire countryside not far from Stratford-upon-Avon makes a charming B&B.

Behind adjacent shopfronts on the marketplace, this vivaciously styled restaurant with rooms wins high praise for its generously equipped, affordable, beautifully presented bedrooms and short, exciting seasonal menus, with dishes from the charcoal grill.