A romantic Elizabethan-style Edwardian mansion, built for a Manchester cotton bleacher and set in extensive landscaped gardens, is the epitome of a well-run country-house hotel. Part of the Eden group (see also Brockencote Hall, Chaddesley Corbett), it is 'at once sumptuous and relaxing' and has just completed a £1.5 million bedroom refurbishment. Readers on their seventh visit to 'this exceptional hotel' stayed in the Terrace Room, which was 'like a small suite with its own terrace'. First-floor doubles in the Knight's Suite are most affordable, but main-house rooms with modern comforts and period charm, an espresso machine and Temple Spa toiletries, have more ambience. Other readers prefer the rooms above the spa in the Orchard House. You can eat informally from a lounge menu, and enjoy a tip-top afternoon tea. In the elegant dining room, produce from the kitchen garden features on a nightly tasting menu. It might include Cornish turbot with charred courgette, yuzu, shellfish sauce, or Creedy Carver chicken, asparagus and hen of the wood. 'Dinner outstanding, breakfast superb. Faultless stay,' concludes a reader. You can book a garden tour in a group or just get a map to follow the hotel's mindfulness walk. (Stephen and Pauline Glover, TN, and others)