The festive season is officially upon us. And that doesn’t just mean presents, piles of roasted veggies and snow (maybe). 

Yuletide is also the most romantic time of the year. A time to make flirtatious eye contact over a steaming mulled wine, to kiss under the mistletoe, and to get lost in The Holiday. However, if you’ve got little-ones to contend with, or simply a busy Christmas schedule, getting away from it all with your beau is easier said than done. 

Happily, the people behind this year’s Good Hotel Guide have exclusively shared five of the most romantic hotels with the Express. From a 14th-century abbot’s residence in parkland to a Gothic masterpiece on the Pembrokeshire coast, a historic mansion in the shadow of York Minster, a riverside priory and Victorian fantasy castle, here are their picks.

Abbots Grange, Broadway, Worcestershire

Standing in peaceful parkland off the High Street in the photogenic tourist hub of Broadway, a 14th-century manor house in sprawling parkland, formerly the summer residence of the Abbot of Pershore, is now a very special family-run B&B. Draped with wisteria in spring, the honeyed-stone building is steeped in history and furnished with fine antiques. That it did not fall into ruin is thanks to American artist Frank Millet and his beautiful wife, Lily, who lived here in the late 1800s and created a shrine to their love.

Among the luminaries they entertained here were artists Claude Monet and John Singer Sargent, composer Edward Elgar, and authors Mark Twain and Henry James. Each of the main-house bedrooms has a carved four-poster bed. A stone staircase leads to the Abbot’s Chamber, with lofty, beamed and vaulted ceiling, trefoil stone carved leaded-light windows, oak-panelled seating area, real-flame bio fire and in-room, freestanding rolltop bath.

The Bishop’s Suite, formerly the Scriptorium and Sacristy, is the most spacious, with a bed chamber and an interconnecting sitting room. Coach-house rooms are more contemporary; all are splendid. New arrivals are greeted with a glass of champagne and offered afternoon tea in the impressive Great Hall. An honesty bar occupies a repurposed pulpit. Outside, there’s comfy seating around a firepit for toasting marshmallows. As another former guest, Oscar Wilde, remarked, “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances” and yes, the whole place is utterly beautiful, but, more than that, it is warm, welcoming and richly atmospheric.

B&B doubles from £315; until the end of Feb, book two nights from £280 per person and a complimentary bottle of fizz will await you.

Penally Abbey, Penally, Pembrokeshire
Described as a ‘gem’ and built in the Gothic Revival style pioneered by the 18th-century writer and connoisseur Horace Walpole, the Boissevain family’s creeper-covered hotel graces a hilltop in magical mature gardens with views over Tenby to the sea and Caldey Island. It is widely praised for the warmth of the welcome.

Interiors by Melanie Boissevain have been decorated in soft pastels and furnished with a mix of contemporary pieces, Persian rugs, antiques and French market finds. One of the prettiest bedrooms, dual-aspect Room 5, has a super-king-size, French-style bed, floaty Volga linen drapes. Room 7 has delicate floral ‘Garden of Dreams’ wallpaper, a ‘secret’ bathroom behind a mirrored door.

If it’s a case of ‘love me, love my dog’, you can book a coach-house room and bring the pooch. All have such luxuries as an espresso machine and Bramley bath products. When it’s wintery outside, you can take afternoon tea by the fire. Dinner is served in the delightful Rhoslyn restaurant with tall, ogee-headed windows to frame the vista, a fireplace, quirky chandelier and Woodchip and Magnolia’s dreamy Zephyr mural wallpaper.

A very short, locally sourced menu features such modern dishes as duck breast, blackberries, potato, hake, bisque, laverbread, potato rösti, and cauliflower rarebit with onion soubise. They specialise in elopements for those wanting to get married in a personal and relaxed way. Couples can invite up to six guests, but for a strictly private ceremony, the hosts can provide witnesses and will do everything to make your wedding a runaway success.

B&B doubles from £230.

Grays Court, York

Even as you approach Helen Heraty’s Grade I listed hotel, tucked away down narrow, cobbled Chapter House Street, you sense that it is going to be really special. The city’s oldest continuously lived in private house, it traces its history back to the Norman Conquest, when it was home to the Treasurer of York Minster under Archbishop Thomas of Bayeux. The present building embodies eight centuries of extending and remodelling, somehow combining remnants of the medieval fabric with 17th- and 18th-century style in a coherent whole.

Bedrooms are spacious, furnished with a mix of English and French antiques and contemporary furniture. A winding Georgian staircase leads to bay-windowed Edwards’ bedroom with an ensuite copper bath and walk-in shower. Aislabie has a Louis XIV inlaid bed, Elizabeth Gray a four-poster. They variously overlook the courtyard or the large, well-tended oasis garden bounded by a section of the city wall, or have a view of the magnificent soaring edifice of the Minster.

You can drink cocktails alfresco or in a panelled bar with it leaded-light windows, take lunch in the Jacobean Long Gallery from a menu of small and larger plates (monkfish ‘scampi’; seafood chowder; falafel, hummus and garden salad), dine in style in the Georgian Bow Room, where organic and home-grown produce feature on à la carte and tasting menus in such dishes as Jerusalem artichoke, wild mushrooms and roasted artichoke broth; salt-aged sirloin, Roscoff onion, beef jus. For weddings, honeymoons and weekends à deux, a more charismatic venue would be hard to find.

B&B doubles from £230. 

Augill Castle, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

In the Eden valley, between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, this Victorian folly castle in 15-acre grounds is ‘nothing short of magical’ wrote one of many Good Hotel Guide readers to have been seduced by its offbeat charms. It is remarkably relaxed and friendly (‘anything goes at Augill except stuffiness and false formality’ declares owner Wendy Bennett), mixing luxury with idiosyncratic style and a personal touch.

There’s no reception desk – just walk right in and make yourself at home. Each bedroom, including annexe rooms, is unique, with maybe a sleigh, an antique canopied half-tester or four-poster bed, a Victorian chaise longue, floor-to-ceiling Gothic leaded windows or a wardrobe in a turret. For complete privacy, you might choose the Little Castle at the end of the stables, with its own turret, an upstairs ensuite bedroom, a ground-floor sitting room, kitchen and second bathroom with rolltop tub.

The furniture throughout is suitably eclectic, not to say eccentric, with salesroom finds, bold wallpapers, heritage paint colours, sumptuous linen, towels and robes. A ‘reinvented’ afternoon tea eschews the usual finger sandwiches in favour of toasted panini or savoury brioche slider, maybe mini tartlets, prawn cocktail – but they still do scones with jam and clotted cream, because what could be more indulgent? A set-price dinner menu is available (and affordable) in the Music Room from Wednesday to Sunday. Staff are ‘friendly and attentive’, evidently happy, and who wouldn’t be in such a cherished, warm-hearted, unusual place?

B&B doubles from £158. 

The Priory, Wareham, Dorset

There are 13 traditionally styled bedrooms at this 16th-century former monastery turned Grade II listed hotel with ‘charm in abundance’ – and, no, none of this is sly code for ‘quaint’ or ‘old hat’. Far from it, the house bedrooms are luxurious and lovely, with maybe oak beams, Toile de Jouy wallpaper, dual-aspect windows, a copper rolltop bath and walk-in shower, views of a flower-filled inner courtyard or to the Isle of Purbeck beyond the garden running down to the River Frome.

But for an intimate stay, choose one of four waterside Boat House suites such as Mallard, whcih has a vaulted, beamed ceiling, a spa bath, a walk-in shower, and a balcony, or Heron with French doors opening from a separate lounge onto a veranda. You can drink cocktails and aperitifs in the Cloisters Bar, while in the glass-walled Garden Room, chef Stephan Guinebault brings experience of childhood days on his grandmother’s Loire Valley farm to lunch and dinner menus for you to peruse over canapés.

Along with such dishes as loin of Purbeck venison with tarragon and pistachio crumb, and pan-fried sea bream with ginger, saffron potatoes, pea velouté and soy reduction, tempting ‘treat yourself’ items include lobster Thermidor, rosemary-roasted châteaubriand with Lyonnaise potatoes and bèarnaise or peppercorn sauce. (Well, if you can’t push the boat out on a loved-up weekend beside the river, when can you?) The dress code is smart casual: no flipflops or trainers, please. Make an occasion of it and work up an appetite beforehand by borrowing a Priory paddleboard.

B&B doubles from £250, boat house £500 per night (min 2 nights).