Gibbon Bridge Hotel

Everything was great but a special call out to staff being very friendly and the quality of food was great

We were so disappointed with our two night stay at Gibbon Bridge for which we paid close to £300. Staff were all lovely, the rooms, however, were pretty poor with scuffed outdated furniture, ‘greige’ decor and stained carpet. The gardens are beautiful and it is a crying shame that the same attention is not given to the interiors. My husband and I ran AA 4 Red Star country house hotels for over 20 years until recently so I guess we may be more alert to issues than others. We were allocated Room 8 with a partial view of the beautiful garden but mostly of flat roof. It was possibly the most old-fashioned, depressing room and we both said straight away that we couldn’t stay in there. Tried calling reception, phone didn’t work so traipsed back down. Upgraded to a suite, Room 12, for an extra £20. This was substantially larger but equally dull and tired looking. Couldn’t watch tv in bed because it is sited upstairs within the suite and there were no bathrobes to keep warm in on the scuffed old leather sofas. The duvet was bunched up inside the cover and needed us to remake it before getting into bed. We decided to spend as little time in the hotel as possible since there would have been no opportunity to cancel/obtain a refund at this stage. We left as soon as we woke up in the early hours of the second night. Hotel stays should be exciting, a treat from our regular four walls. This, I regret, was an ordeal and we couldn’t wait to leave.

Good try better! The hotel grounds are amazing and the rooms are a great size. The food is also generally good. However, the availability of main courses was very limited on the night we ate in the restaurant which dampened the whole experience for us. The hotel has so much potential but in my opinion it is massively underused which leaves the hotel feeling a bit soulless!