Also made a Dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list is Maureen Lipman, on her second stint acting in Coronation Street.
Sir David, 74, is most famous for playing moustachioed Belgian sleuth Poirot in the long-running Agatha Christie detective series on ITV, but his career began at 16 in the National Youth Theatre.
He moved on to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and then to the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first Poirot appearance was in 1989, and he played him in more than 70 episodes.
Sir David said: “I feel so very honoured, privileged and full of gratitude to the Queen, my country and my profession.”
Great British Bake Off icon Dame Mary, 85, who helped launch the hit show 10 years ago, was typically humble, saying she was “absolutely overwhelmed”.
She added: “For most of my life I have been lucky enough to follow my passion to teach cookery through books and the media. I just wish my parents and brothers were here to share my joy, as my only achievement at school was just one O-level – in cookery, of course!
“However, I am sure they are looking down and smiling. I will celebrate with my husband and family.”
During a six-decade career, she has published 75 cookery books and had worked on magazines before TV stardom.
On Bake Off, she struck up an on-screen partnership with fellow judge Paul Hollywood, serving up cheeky innuendos and playing good cop to his bad.
Dame Mary says she was absolutely overwhelmed by the news (Image: BBC/Endemol Shine UK/Craig Harman)
Dame Mary, who has two surviving children with retired antique book dealer Paul Hunnings, left the BBC show before it switched to Channel 4 three years ago.
Lorraine, 60, who presents her self-titled ITV show after long stints on GMTV and This Morning, was delighted by her new title – she was given an OBE in 2012.
“This is such an unexpected honour. I’m very grateful and humbled,” she said.
“Particularly as I am in far more deserving company, especially all of those frontline workers who are true heroes. I’ve worked in journalism since I left school in 1978 and joined my local newspaper, and have been lucky to have been on breakfast TV for 36 years.
Maureen Lipman becomes the ‘first Dame of Coronation Street’ (Image: PA)
“It’s a job I never take for granted and that I dearly love. I’ve met some truly inspirational people and I learn something new every day. It’s also been a real privilege to be in a position to be able to give something back and help charities that do so much good.”
Married to cameraman Steve Smith for 28 years, with a daughter, Lorraine works for funds including Help for Heroes and Muscle Help Foundation.
Maureen, 74, becomes “first Dame of Coronation Street” with her reward for services to the arts and charity. She plays Evelyn Plummer in the long-running soap but had a brief role as landlady of the Rovers Return pub 18 years ago.
“I am proud to be honoured by the Queen and country that I love, for doing the work that I love,” she said.
Her home city of Hull provided a haven for her grandfather after he fled anti-Semitic persecution in Russia and paid for her drama school training.
She said she still enjoys her work and now had “this unexpected damehood, whilst happily still treading the cobbles of Corrie.
“It is a wonderful reflection on what, one trusts, is the continuing generosity of this country to the immigrant.”
Her break came in 1968 kitchen sink drama Up The Junction, but she found national fame as Beatie, the fussing Jewish grandmother in 1980s BT TV ads.
She is the widow of leading playwright Jack Rosenthal, with whom she had two children, both writers.
Sir David Attenborough was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael And St George, in the latest tribute to his services to broadcasting and conservation.
Sir David Attenborough was appointed a Knight Grand Cross (Image: Sir David Attenborough )
Just this week, aged 94, he was battling for the planet again as a judge in Prince William’s Earthshot environmental competition.
From the world of music, singer Tommy Steele, 83, was knighted for his 60-year career and charity work, while ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, 72, was made an OBE.
Jeff said: “I am extremely humbled and grateful to be awarded this honour for my services to music. To be recognised for my work is an extraordinary privilege.”
Joan Armatrading, the prolific singer-songwriter behind Love And Affection and Me Myself I, spoke about being made a CBE.
There was a CBE for actor Adrian Lester (Image: PA)
The 69-year-old compared receiving her award from the Queen to something from another world that was her childhood on the Caribbean island of St Kitts.
“You would hear of people being ‘Sir this’ and ‘Dame that’ and ‘CBE this’. They might have well said, ‘And here is somebody from Mars’. I am very happy.”
Dizzee Rascal, 36, was made an MBE for services to music, as was rapper Lady Leshurr and singer Mica Paris, while TV theme composer Tony Hatch was given an OBE.
There were CBEs for the University of Manchester’s Prof Brian Cox and for actor Adrian Lester, while Phil Redmond, who wrote TV’s Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks, was knighted.
Sally Wainwright, writer and director behind BBC One drama Gentleman Jack, was made OBE, and said: “I’m pleased that it’s come on the back of Gentleman Jack because I’ve been working on that for 20 years. That, for me, has been really quite beautiful actually.”
The Woman in Black author Susan Hill, who was made a Dame for services to literature, joked that she was “chuffed to have caught up with my friend Dame Judi Dench”.
Fashion designer Paul Smith, knighted in 2000, receives an upgrade with the Order of the Companions of Honour, joining Elton John and Paul McCartney.