‘If you are looking for a hotel filled with quiet, understated charm, The Lime Tree is perfect,’ a reader writes. Occupying two handsome, Grade II listed, 19th-century townhouses, it is ’comfortable, quiet, clean, reasonably priced, and has much more the feel of a sophisticated urban home than corporate/chain hotel'. Some street-facing first-floor bedrooms have an iron-lace balcony. They are supplied with books to read (Aesops Fables, anyone?), Bramley bath products. By the nature of the building, they come in varying sizes, some just big enough for one, but all have good fabrics and wallpapers, Farrow & Ball paint colours. The interiors benefited from extensive lockdown redesign and refurbishment under Matt and Charlotte Goodall. In 2023 they sold the property to Spanish hotel group Room Mate and will be missed, but the hotel is clearly in safe hands. The Buttery is the place for breakfast, brunch, light lunches, tea and cake, or, when the sun shines, you can sit in the little oasis back garden. There are good restaurants close at hand, including the legendary and romantic Poule au Pot, no spring chicken, now in its 63rd year. (Sarah Smith)