So have we been too harsh giving it a 2/5? We run an award winning inn in Woodstock VT USA and thus do have high expectations of what is good and what is not.
The place is certainly atmospheric and has good food and beer. The staff were very approachable but we feel a fundamental design flaw allows the noise from the bar or other bedrooms to be really unacceptable and it made for an unpleasant stay.
To start with the bedroom we were in. A good comfortable four poster bed with great linen, efficient free wi-fi and the obligatory flat screen TV as well as some fresh biscuits and tea making facilities got us off to a good start. The bath was a free standing one that needed a bloody good clean, as it was marked from the shower hose, had dirt and fluff around the waste pipe outside of the bath and the shower attachment squirted water when the taps were running. The condition of the painted walls in the bathroom and bedroom was very scruffy. The large bathroom would also have easily taken a separate free standing shower and we felt corners had been cut with the design and fit out.
The carpet on the landing and the stairs was very grubby and badly marked, not helped by having to enter via the outside courtyard, and we felt this was a very poor design feature as had the floors been wooden or tiled they could have at least been cleaned daily. These are all minor individual points but they add up to show a poor level of house keeping.
Onto the noise.....the bar below our bedroom was luckily fairly quiet on a Sunday night in November so the level of bar noise could be lived with, but not when the bar is full. The big negative was that in our bedroom you could hear EVERY word of the folks in the next door bathroom, and when the toilet flushed we thought that the cistern was in our bedroom right behind our head board. The bath was filled later that night and we again believed we could touch the water by the noise it created! When ever the next door room was up in the night, or in the morning, our sleep was badly disturbed. They were not being particularly loud and blissfully unaware of the disturbance they were creating. The bad design issue we feel makes the bedroom unacceptable as the basic ingredient of a country B & B/Inn/hotel is a quiet bedroom, as the majority of time spent there should involve SLEEP and not disturbing your fellow residents!
The breakfast was fine, but I never got the offered black pudding on the menu and my partners tasty smoked fish omlette was swimming in too much cream....for breakfast does one need cream except in maybe coffee or on porridge? The staff member serving breakfast did a sterling job, but she had to keep moving around, and we had to stare at, the cleaning mop and bucket sitting right next to the bar.. We again feel this is not how a professional hospitality establishment should operate.
In conclusion our stay left us disappointed and tired hence our 2/5...we would certainly eat & drink here again but not stay. However if you do decide to stay take ear plugs, drink a fair amount and be an early riser! read more
