You can’t miss the bright red lights of the Bedford — just a five-minute walk from Balham station — and you wouldn’t want to either. This 15-room boutique hotel charms you with its circus theme downstairs and wows you upstairs in the bedrooms: expect bold wallpapers, Instagram-worthy tubs and loud but stylish interiors.

Brilliantly positioned just behind the South Bank and a few minutes’ walk from London’s Borough Market, this is a smart hotel in both senses of the word. Everything from check-in to browsing menus for the canteenM bar is done on an app.

A pub, restaurant and hotel rolled into one, the Culpeper is a stone’s throw from buzzing Spitalfields Market and Liverpool Street.

Wellness is top of the agenda at this affordable hotel, which has a tranquil Scandi feel. The all-day menu in the kitchen is curated by health food restaurant and retreat Yeotown; there’s a pantry stocked with nutritious snacks and a noise-free library for chilling out.

Housed in a former textiles factory in Whitechapel, this New York-inspired hotel nods to its industrial past with exposed brick walls and huge metal-framed windows. Even the smallest rooms come with a king-size bed; the best loft room has its own hot tub on the roof.

Named after local 19th-century anti-slavery campaigner and social reformer Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, this characterful pub and hotel sit right on Brick Lane (it’s the younger sibling to the Culpeper down the road).

There’s a loose sports theme to Moxy London Stratford — a reference to its location, a ten-minute walk from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park — from the bicycle hanging on the wall to the silhouettes of athletes swimming, skipping and playing table tennis printed on wood panelling, both in the lobby and living room.

It’s the convenient location of the Rockwell in West London, right by the blockbuster museums and boutique shopping in Chelsea, that makes it a winner.

A social enterprise hotel for the arts opposite Wood Green tube station (it’s just 12 minutes to King’s Cross), Green Rooms has discounted rates for artists and creatives.

The no-frills, function-first Z Hotel group has 11 outposts dotted around the capital but this one, in a red-brick house that backs onto St Paul’s Church behind the Piazza in Covent Garden, stands out for its brilliant location.

Across the street from Paddington station, the Pilgrm is spread across four Victorian houses that have been beautifully and sensitively restored: think reclaimed cast-iron radiators, mid-century armchairs and wooden parquet flooring.