Love Bucklers Hard visited decades ago & The Hotel. Professional check-in. Room in the older part of the hotel, wear & tear on the stairs. Carpet threadbare, paintwork chipped, handrails sticky. Forgave this in a 300 year old building. Rooms well presented & clean. Bathroom tired, poor sealants, dirty tile grout. Bramley bathroom products. Beds comfortable & linen clean. River views. All OK so far. Some issues from this point. Hotel has a monopoly on food. Choice is the restaurant, or ‘Harry’s’ pub. We ate at Harry’s. Prices average/high. Steak £24 Burger £16 Lamb chop £20; drinks also average/high. Waitress was fun. Food is where it gets sketchy. Steak & chop didn’t come with additional vegetables. It seemed so mean! A ploy to order more? It’s typical in the UK to have at least one second veg. The food itself was ok, portions small. The burger our recommendation. In the room there were mosquitos. We killed a few before bed. We were awoken to room full of them, killed well over thirty before falling asleep! Woke covered with bites. Hotel knew of the problem – so why no warning or products to combat it? Breakfast was efficient. Disappointing buffet, no fruit salad, loaf with slow toaster, no pastries. Bizarre deep cereal jars with spoons rather than ladles, impossibly daft! The cooked breakfasts were to order & of high quality, but the portions were small. Checkout smooth. Still love this Hotel, want to help improve things so it’s 4/5 (otherwise it's a 3/5 on the day).
