It only seemed right to book in for an over night stay in a little luxury to celebrate. A deluxe room, with four poster bed, overlooking the lake was the least I could do to thank Lizzie for putting up with me for such a long time. Dinner and breakfast included. A Yorkshireman always looks for a bargain!
The Whitley Hall Hotel has 32 en-suite rooms 2 of which have four poster beds. It is a 4.3 star hotel. I'm not sure how you get .3 of a star, but that's what it said in the blurb.
It's a great venue for weddings and celebrations and while we were there, there was a wedding and a huge 80th birthday party.
Our room was tastefully decorated and indeed did overlook the small lake in the grounds of the hotel.
Naturally, me being me, things couldn't run totally smoothly and within 5 minutes of checking in I had managed to lock us out of our room and had to do the walk of shame to reception to ask for help. I'm not sure if the lady on reception took pity on me or what, but she told me that the former clients in room 39 managed to lock themselves out not once, but twice in quick succession. (Must have been Aussies!). I assured her that I was a quick learner and it wouldn't happen again. She nodded, but she had that look on her face that said "yeah right....heard that one before...".
We had a stroll around the grounds and then retired to our room for a rest. At GB Pounds 130.00 a night I was going to use that room as much as I could.
We had booked dinner for 7pm, so after a lay down to recover from our stroll we headed for the bar for pre dinner drinks.
(photos - Lizzie and Malc Relaxing in the bar with pre-dinner drinks - the beer seemed to evaporate from my glass!)
It's a very well stocked bar, but drinks here are double the price of the village pubs - only to be expected I guess. A pint of beer and a glass of wine GB Pounds 13.00 so about NZ$26.00
(Photo above - in the Whitley Hall dining room enjoying the main course)
The dining experience at the Whitley Hall was....interesting. The first course - I ordered the pork belly and Lizzie had a beetroot and cheese dish - came on huge plates with a tiny bit of food in the middle of the plate, surrounded by a swirl of "jus".
How did you find your food sir? I moved a pea and there it was!
The main meal however was plentiful - as you can see from the above photo I had a big plate of beef with mash and Yorkshire pudding and a side plate of mixed seasonal veg. Very nice and very good value. Quite rare for places like this to serve such big mains and to include the side dish as part of the meal - not an extra. Well done Whitley Hall! Lizzie had the pork - an equally big meal.
For desert I had the Bakewell Tart with affogato ice cream - a generous sized slice and delicious. Lizzie had the Eton Mess - which wasn't a mess at all but very well presented......creamy but not overly rich. Just right.
(Photo above - The Whitley Hall Hotel lounge )
The following morning after a very nice full English Breakfast of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, beans, 2 poached eggs, black pudding and a hash brown - plus toast and honey and several cups of coffee - it was time for one last walk around the grounds before setting off on the next leg of our trip to Oxford.
(Photo above - every manor house has to have a peacock!)
Overall, although our stay here lived up to the "Luxury" label and the staff were absolutely first rate, we found the other guests to be quite aloof. It seemed to be a struggle for them to make conversation with us.....or even eye contact in some cases. There was little in the way of "inclusion and friendliness" that we had experienced in the village. Such a pity.
Right - off we go. Next stop Oxford.
No comments:
Post a Comment