Best hotels in UK

'Kith' is an old Scots word for the people and places that feel like home, which sets the tone rather nicely. This shiny boutique hotel is in the middle of St Andrews, the medieval university town that gave the world golf, and it wears its heritage lightly. Behind three restored 1847 facades you'll find 44 design-forward rooms, a chef-led restaurant the locals have already adopted, and a front door barely 200 yards from the Old Course's 18th green. Elegant without being stuffy, it's equally happy hosting golfers, visiting parents and anyone after a smart Scottish weekend. Dogs are welcome, too.

Soho isn't where you'd expect to find a moment's peace, which is rather the point of Ham Yard. Step off the noisy streets and you land in a tree-filled pedestrian courtyard ringed with small independent boutiques, a Tony Cragg bronze at its heart - a pocket of calm most Londoners never know is there. Inside, Ham Yard is a riot of creativity: an art collection on every wall and interiors layered with the confident, eclectic eye of designer Kit Kemp, all wrapped in the sociable spirit of the West End it calls home. Playful, grown-up, and unmistakably itself.

Once Edinburgh's richest patch of real estate, St Andrew Square was where the city's bankers and insurance men counted their fortunes. Buchan House, built in 1775 as five Georgian homes, spent many years as a grand residence, before becoming a warren of offices, and now, the Malmaison. Today, it's all inky walls, low lighting and theatrical glamour and it's definitely dark, grown-up and faintly decadent rather than bright and breezy. The popular Chez Mal brasserie and bar are built into the old bones downstairs, but if you fancy going further afield, the New Town's finest is on the doorstep.

Plonked in the middle of 400 acres of private Hampshire countryside, Heckfield Place is handsome, historic and really very cool. Less than an hour from Heathrow, it's close enough to London for a long weekend, but far enough away to feel like you're properly "in the countryside." And in fact, Heckfield really is its own world, dictated less by check-in times and more by the seasons and the biodynamic farm at its heart that supplies most of the (extraordinary) food in the two restaurants. Choose Marle with its Michelin Green Star, or the old-stable block, Hearth and prepare to be blown away. You won't have any problem decompressing here, but you just might struggle to leave.

As you arrive at the Rosewood London, the noise of London's bustling streets seems to simply fade the background... Cross the courtyard, then sweep up an original marble staircase barely changed since the building's Edwardian heyday and into one of the capital's most reliably luxurious (and calm) hotels. Inside, the mood softens into something warm and residential with polished wood, deep sofas and flourishing bouquets at every turn, yet it really is in the thick of midtown, equidistant from the theatres of the West End and Covent Garden, as well as the buzz of the city. It's lavish yet refined and the service is, quite simply, impeccable.

Gleneagles opened in 1924 as the Caledonian Railway's answer to the French Riviera, complete with its own station, and it still plays the part of grand Highland resort rather than country-house hideaway. The 850-acre estate wraps around three championship golf courses, including Jack Nicklaus's PGA Centenary Course, host of the 2014 Ryder Cup. Beyond the fairways there's a falconry school, gundog training, off-road driving and a spa the size of a small village hall. Two Michelin stars glow at Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, still run by his long-time team. It's less a hotel than a self-contained Highland world, golf clubs optional.

The Mandarin Oriental has a foot in two worlds of London, both as iconic as the next: fashionable Knightsbridge and the royal parkland of Hyde Park – and this split personality has served it well since 1902. The hotel is a grande dame in the fullest sense, reimagined for today after a careful restoration, in which the iconic Edwardian architecture was combined with a softer, more contemporary edge. But with its liveried doormen, hushed corridors, and the sense of a place that has seen everyone and forgotten nothing, it still does old-school London with total, effortless conviction.

As soon as you walk through the revolving doors, past the footmen in tails, and into the calm elegance of the (beautiful) lobby, the decade seems to slip back a hundred years. Claridge's has been a Mayfair institution since the 1820s, but truly itself since the Roaring 20s, when bright young things made it their playground. Today, royalty and film stars still check in, and a century on, it still throws the best party in town. Inside, the hotel is the epitome of timeless glamour with plenty of Art Deco influence in the black-and-white floors and mirrored walls. Spend a day here and you'll float between afternoon tea, cocktails and the shops on the doorstep, barely noticing the hours roll by.

This is London's most talked-about hotel opening in years, set in its most unexpected building: the former American Embassy on Grosvenor Square, a 1960s modernist landmark given a sweeping second life by the Rosewood. The Chancery's architecture is all bold geometry and tall windows but inside, the design is clean and warm, softened with plenty of curves, spectacular chandeliers and glimmering brass. It's an all-suite hotel, and there are no less than eight restaurants and bars (including the rooftop Eagle Bar with skyline views and a Japanese sushi spot by renowned Tobi Masa) and a highly sophisticated subterranean wellness space with a glitzy pool, dermatology clinic and an ice bath. Spectacular, in every way.