Review by James Chaytor on 14th August, 2008

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As a small family of 4, we were assuming that the 'family room' of the Bridge House Hotel would be set up for people like us. For the price they charge, I expected a lot more. For a start the 'family room' is right at the top of the hotel and seems to have been last decorated in the 1970's replete with artex walls and a bathroom suite several decades old. The room was in the roof the building, which had a double glazed window but obviously had no roof insulation whatsoever as you could clearly hear the traffic noise in the street below. The most family unfriendly part of the room was the kettle which was balanced on a stool at toddler height! Boiling water over a 1 year old anyone?! God knows what they were thinking! The cord was too short to reach the table and so a constant battle had to be fought to stop our 18 month old fiddling with it! All of the staff were great with the exception of the management, who are like something out of Fawlty Towers. We were repeatedly told/hassled not to eat take away in our rooms (not that we had!) and informed that the breakfast room was available for this purpose - the one night I did tell the owner that we would be using the breakfast room to eat fish and chips he replied "there are tables in the fish and chip restaurant!" - I explained that it was raining heavily outside and that I didn't want to drag our small children out in it - he sighed and said "Well, I suppose I'll have to lay places for you then". His side kick, the female manager of the place (not his wife) conducted herself like a school matron and said everything with a fixed and false smile on her face. My wife had the knife that she was about to dip into a jam pot whisked from under her and was asked to "decant" the jam using a spoon provided in the corner of the room. All the other staff members were delightful and very helpful, but we agree with the comment by one of them when they said that the bolt on the front door was a bit stiff and old "like the management". I would only recommend visiting if you like your hotels to show you how Britain looked and was like in the 70's. The rest of us expect a lot more.

Date visited: 06/08/08