Miss Mostyn inspects Llandudno hotels: grand fronts, useful views and the occasional bathroom from a darker age.

Llandudno’s hotels are not simply places to sleep. They are part of the town’s posture. The seafront terraces stand in line like elderly officers pretending not to notice the damp patch.

The Victorian resort was designed around hotels of a certain scale and composition. The promenade frontage was intended from the beginning to hold substantial buildings facing the bay, and the hotel stock that resulted (St George’s, the Imperial, the Empire, the Hydro and others) gave Llandudno an accommodation capacity unusual for a town of twenty thousand permanent residents.

The best hotels understand their role. They offer sea air, decent service, a proper sense of arrival and the pleasure of waking to the bay without having to earn it by climbing anything.

Llandudno has won more Britain in Bloom gold awards than any other resort, which is not a comment about hotels but does suggest the town pays attention to appearance. The hotels have generally followed suit, or at least followed suit in the public rooms.

But do not confuse a grand exterior with a good stay. Some buildings are beautifully maintained. Others are surviving on position, old photographs and guests too polite to complain properly.

Check the lift if you need one. Check the heating if visiting outside summer. Check parking unless you enjoy circling streets in a mood that would alarm your ancestors.

The seafront hotels range from large four-star establishments to smaller two and three-star operations that occupy the same Victorian terraces with rather different ambitions. The key questions for any booking are: what does the sea view actually show, is the room quiet enough, and has anyone maintained the bathroom since the promenade was built.

A seafront hotel gives the fullest Llandudno experience, especially if you enjoy promenade theatre and the faint rustle of other people’s breakfast arrangements.

For better value, look slightly back from the front or towards Craig y Don. The view is wonderful, but one should not pay extra merely to discover the curtains have lost the will to live.

Independent hotels and smaller boutique-style places have emerged in recent years to supplement the traditional stock. Some are excellent. None of them come with a guarantee of interesting history, but one may find something rather better: a fresh bathroom, a comfortable bed and staff who have not been distracted by their own Victorian legacy.