Ship-owner Allan Hughes chose the perfect site for this handsome Lutyens-style Edwardian country house, on high ground, with panoramic views across Exmoor to the coast, the approach awash with daffodils in springtime.

In a hamlet just 25 minutes from Bath, 'the Carps' is a 'very nice country pub' offering 'very good' food, and oodles of atmosphere in the stone-walled, beamed bar, with fire and log-burner.

With its bright yellow front door and rhubarb-pink sitting room, this Georgian townhouse with cottages, restaurant in the adjacent ironmonger's and a courtyard garden masterminded by garden designer Penelope Hobhouse is both classic and chic.

A 'popular pub in a beautiful village', this 15th-century coaching inn with its old arched carriageway has been beautifully made over in casual-chic style. It was a second venture for Dan Brod and Charlie Luxton, with Matt Greenlees.

Where Exmoor meets the Bristol Channel, this foodie retreat that oozes personality and style has 'very comfortable rooms with lovely sea views; the food is up there with many Michelin-starred restaurants'.

'Gardez la Foi' reads the Poulett family motto over the door of this thatched village pub, and the trio behind the Beckford group (see The Beckford Arms, Tisbury) have kept absolute faith with their winning concept here. The ambience is friendly and relaxed.

Serving cider since 1851, this honey-stone village pub has been attracting attention since a lockdown makeover by enthusiastic new owners. Contemporary-chic bedrooms have good fabrics, a Roberts radio, posh toiletries, views over gently rolling countryside.

In a village close to Bath, one of England's oldest inns offers characterful rooms and above-average pub fare.

On the green of a village at the heart of the Somerset Levels, this stone-built 18th-century village inn has been updated as a stylish, contemporary drop-in bar and restaurant, with light, bright bedrooms and menus for traditionalists as well as more adventurers diners.

Koos Bekker and Karen Roos have brought to Somerset the vision behind their hotel on a Dutch Cape wine estate, creating an idyll around Palladian Hadspen manor house, with farm-to-fork dining, dreamy spa, unique rooms in converted outbuildings, beautiful gardens – and a Roman villa as well as two interactive museums.

In a medieval village overlooked by a red sandstone castle, the one-time guest house for Cleeve Abbey is now a dog-friendly hotel with an onsite hair and beauty salon, a stunning historic bar and 28 bedrooms, some with contemporary furnishings, some with an antique four-poster.

The setting is pure hog heaven at this hotel, surrounded by a deer park in a fold in the Mendips. The part-Georgian building comes in the group's shabby-chic style and there's a kitchen garden with smokehouse, a wild-flower orchard, greenhouse, fruit cages and beehives, hens a-laying, and a 25-mile menu.

Black swans glide on the pond in the gardens of veteran jazz saxophonist Roy Copeland's late-Georgian mansion, with traditionally styled rooms, where an excellent breakfast is served in the orangery.

At the heart of the Dyer family's dairy farm, with views to the Quantock hills, this B&B with onsite café occupies a 15th-century, red sandstone manor house, where log fires burn and an Aga-cooked breakfast is served at a 20ft oak table in the Great Hall, the walls hung with fearsome pikes and hallberds.

Trained chefs Caroline Gardiner and Alan Lucas have transformed this former village inn into a restaurant offering sustainably sourced menus of beautifully presented food with rustic-chic bedrooms and lodges, making it the perfect place for a country retreat.

Saved from decay, completely refurbished and fitted out with flair and a sense of fun, this Georgian coaching inn has bedrooms of great character as well as seriously good food.

On an estate roamed by red deer at the heart of Exmoor National Park, this is the perfect country pub, updated for the 21st century, with attractive, cottage-style bedrooms, and daily menus featuring meat from the owners' organic farm as well as locally landed and foraged ingredients.

Popular with locals, this 18th-century village pub in the Somerset Levels has stripped-back modern interiors, boutique-style bedrooms with bags of charm, creative cooking of local, seasonal ingredients, and a wood-fired oven on the terrace for alfresco dining.

Behind a Georgian frontage with a century-old carved White Hart over the door, and dating in parts from the 1400s, this inn on the market square is a blend of cosy rusticity and casual chic, with stylish bedrooms, a beamed locals bar, snacks and small plates available all day, and a restaurant in the old skittle alley serving gastropub fare.

As much restaurant with rooms as friendly local, this 18th-century village pub, run by a husband-and-wife team, offers smart accommodation and cooking of a very high order.