A new breed of classy rural hostelry is changing the way we weekend, combining the best virtues of ye olde English coaching inn - cosy fires and bars, fat breakfasts, friendly service - with the classiest trimmings of a 21st-century hotel.

Think of them as bonsai country-house hotels, with a suitably diminutive price tag - most have rooms for little more (and sometimes quite a bit less) than £100 a night.

Here are 12 of our favourites. Welcome to the new wave of impeccably comfortable, thoroughly affordable weekends away.

1 THE INN ON THE TAY Grandtully, Perth and Kinross Geoff and Josie Wilson swapped the Glasgow rat race for Perthshire’s slower pace last year, seduced by this inn’s spectacular setting on the banks of the River Tay, flanked by forested hills.

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Their bar’s new deck maximises the views, as does the restaurant’s wall of window. Home-cooked dishes celebrate the local bounty, including game from the surrounding estates and haggis made using their favourite butcher’s secret recipe.

Rooms are spacious enough to accommodate a family of four, and all have contemporary decor, fresh flowers and windows opening onto the roaring Tay. Doubles from £60, B&B; 01887 840760, www.theinnonthetay.co.uk

Browse our map of hotels in Scotland

2 THE SUN INN Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria Chocolate-box cute and quietly classy, Kirkby Lonsdale’s cottages cosy up alongside artisan shops such as the award-winning Churchmouse Cheeses. The Sun fits in beautifully, its rooms held up by exposed stone and dark beams, but newly accessorised with blond wood and contemporaryfurniture.

Once you’ve visited the bar, take your tipple out the back to drink in “Ruskin’s View”, a sweeping panorama over the medieval Devil’s Bridge to the Yorkshire Dales, immortalised by Turner in one of his best-loved watercolours. Doubles from £90, B&B; 01524 271965, www.sun-inn.info

Read our review of Hippin Hall, Kirby Lonsdale

3 THE BLACK SWAN Helmsley, Yorkshire The shadow of the trouser press hung over this inn on the North York Moors until last May, when the trendy hotelier Simon Rhatigan, formerly of Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons and owner of the nearby Feversham Arms, got hold of it. Its bars have been spruced (log fires return this autumn) and the restaurant has rocketed to three AA rosettes. Last Christmas, Rhatigan opened a lovely tearoom; next month, he launches an Elemis spa.

The rooms are quietly classic, but an upgrade begins next month (continuing into the new year), with flatscreen TVs and more luxurious bed linen the welcome additions. Service is arguably friendlier than at the Feversham, and the Swan’s rates are certainly lower. Doubles from £160, including dinner and breakfast; 01439 770466, www.blackswan-helmsley.co.uk

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