Lumley Castle Hotel

Disappointing

The castle itself is a delightful place to stay the staff are exceedingly friendly and restaurant was excellent. On arrival we were told that we had been upgraded to a room in The Mews and on entering the room there was a "WOW" factor. Large four poster bed in a large room. However later we discovered that the shower was damaged, was fixed and then broke again so difficult to operate. The windows once opened couldn't be shut from the inside so had to go outside and push them to close, fortunately we were on the ground floor. The carpet was ruffled and generally in a bad state so all in all after the initial wow factor the feeling was of disappointment. Decoration of the room is best described as "tired". I did discuss the matter with the guest services manager, Shaun Barrett who apologised and offered a free bottle of wine for dinner which was appreciated. We enjoyed the stay at Lumley Castle because of its location, the staff and the restaurant but it was tainted by the very poor state of the bedroom.

Lovely Lumley with occasional chaos in the castle.

Lumley Castle is a beautiful and imposing structure; staying there is a little bit of luxury in a very special part of the UK.

Our room was the Richard 2nd room and everything was in good order (including eventually finding the hidden bathroom!). The four poster bed was high up (be careful if you're less than 5 foot 6) and very comfortable but do beware the step down from the dais where the bed is as my wife fell over this when getting up in the night and sustained some bruises as a result. We did ask for the turndown service each night but it didn't happen. Nonetheless everything was clean and we enjoyed the walk through the castle to go to the restaurant. You feel history all around you!

However, the restaurant itself was chaotic. It may well be the case that it is hard to cater in old buildings but I'm sure a better arrangement of space could be made. At breakfast there was a constant queue of people trying to get to or from the separate continental breakfast room and staff had to be very patient as they waited for guests to come and go through the small vestibule where we checked in for meals. We were very disappointed that the table we had requested for our second evening in the restaurant was occupied even though we arrived on time - for all our meals we ended up in a very claustrophobic table virtually in the fireplace.

Overall I would recommend Lumley Castle to those who want to experience a slice of history but having stayed there once I think that I would prefer somewhere better organised in future.

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This promised much but was poor in terms of detail, I had to send back a dirty glass that came to the table with my wine in and did not expect to see glasses left from the previous evening when our room was serviced. The staff were friendly and helpful.
A suggestion rather than part of the review - The information book about the hotel and area was of poor quality and for an area so rich in history boring in the extreme perhaps the marketing department need to look at publications from the local area such as those from Durham Cathedral, the Castle Museum and the Palace at Bishop Auckland?