The Good Hotel Guide

New edition now out

The Good Hotel Guide** does exactly what it says on the cover - and it's been showing us the way to go for a generation.

Now up to it's 26th edition (it's published every September), the Guide is perhaps unique on the bulging bookshelves of the Travel section because entries are recommended by readers themselves, vetted and assessed by anonymous reporters... and written up in a style that is witty, concise and blunt. If something's good, they say so. When it isn't - they say so too.

The Guide, edited by Caroline Raphael and Desmond Balmer, is not a complete introduction to every hotel going; instead, they tend to concentrate on smaller, independent hotels and use a flexible approach to categorising the establishments. There is usually something to suit all budgets.

They're also prepared to stick their necks out and say which hotels they believe are the very best - winners of a Cesar award "outstanding in their own class".

Here are this year's top ten, in democratically alphabetical order of award:

1. B&B of the year
The Quay House, Clifden, County Galway
Website

2. Country Hotel of the Year
Pen-Y-Dyffryn, Oswestry, Shropshire

(but "only a hundred yards from Wales")

Website

3. Devon Hotel of the Year
The Henley, Bigbury-on-Sea, Devon
(no website)

4. Green Hotel of the Year
Strattons Hotel & Restaurant, Swaffam, Norfolk
Website

5. Inn of the Year
The Rose and Crown, Romaldkirk, County Durham
Website

6. Manor-house Hotel of the Year
Bibury Court, Bibury, Gloucestershire
Website

7. Scottish Hotel of the Year
Kirroughtree House, Newton Stewart, Wigtownshire
Website

8. Seaside Hotel of the Year
The Nare Hotel, Veryan-in-Roseland, Cornwall
Website

9. Small-town Hotel of the Year
The Bridge House, Beaminster, Dorset
Website

10. Welsh Country-house Hotel of the Year
Maes-y-Neuadd, Talsarnau, Gwynedd
Website

The editors are also responsible for The Good Hotel Guide: Continental Europe, equally recommended the next time you prepare to board your low-cost Jet and have money spare to upgrade from caravan site to a little slice of hotel heaven (countries covered range from Norway to Greece, Portugal to Slovenia).

• See also: Good Hotel Guide
• UK transport and journey planners

**The Good Hotel Guide: Great Britain and Ireland 2003 (published by Ebury Press, £15.99).