Orestone Manor

For a classic seaside holiday on the English Riviera, set your sat nav for the family-run Orestone Manor on the South Devon coast. Here, a few miles outside Torquay, you will find a Victorian country house with landscaped gardens and views of the sea. It has a restaurant, a terrace where you can enjoy afternoon tea and 14 traditionally elegant guest rooms. The boutique size and the fact that it’s family run means there’s a friendly hospitality that’s as timeless as the surroundings and location on the English Riviera.

Bedrooms range from great-value classic rooms to spacious luxurious suites. One of those is in the main hotel building with a four-poster bed. Two others offer more contemporary luxury with hot tubs in a nearby converted coach house. All but two of the guest rooms offer sea views, and, although they’ve been recently refurbished, there’s a pleasingly traditional look and feel. You can expect all the standard hotel room inclusions – tea- and coffee-making facilities, flatscreen TVs, wifi, en-suite bathrooms – topped off with robes and slippers.

The restaurant downstairs is excellent – popular with locals as well as hotel guests. It serves up a mixture of classics and modern European cuisine in elegant surroundings and is just the place to refuel after days out walking the coastal path which is five minutes from the front door. The beach is a 10-minute walk away and the hotel’s location in Maidencombe is less than five miles from Torquay in one direction and Teignmouth in the other. All in all the perfect place for an affordable break by the sea.