The Spilman Hotel is friendly, family-run hotel conveniently located near the middle of the town. Downstairs is a pleasant bar and a surprisingly good restaurant. The rooms are recently refurbished but based on the original layout so they tend to be a good size with high ceilings.
The inclusive breakfast included a good selection of cereals and also a traditional cooked breakfast options. The cooked breakfast was pretty good, although the sausages were rather bland.
Dinner was much better. Starters cost £4.50 to £6.00 and included a fish cake and a ham hock and smoked chicken terrine. Mains range from around £10 to £20 and included a pork fillet dish, a stuffed chicken breast and Fillet steak with a pepper corn and mushroom sauce with potatoes dauphinoise or chips and seasonable vegetables. Puddings included some traditional English sweets, and cheese and biscuits. The food was very good, well prepared and well seasoned, but the gaps between courses were a little long.
The hotel has a small car park which is rather difficult to find and the entrance is challenging. Drive North East past the hotel down to the church, bear left around the church and come back down behind the hotel on St Peter's Street then onto King Street. The entrance to the car park is a narrow alleyway on the left just after the Hugh Evans butcher's shop: swing wide to the right and turn hard left into the alleyway. Be prepared to fine tune your approach because the alleyway is very narrow not wide enough for pedestrians to pass a car, so breath in as you drive down! Once you have gone down the alleyway the car park itself is reasonable with room for about 13 cars.
I enjoyed my brief stay at the Spilman's Hotel, and the dinner in particular was a very pleasant surprise: recommended. read more