The Wood Norton

Pleasant experience all around.

This was the third leg of our staycation and the hotel was very CV aware, they took our temperature on arrival, the tables were very widely spaced and (after reading past reviews) the breakfast buffet has been removed. So no fresh fruit, cold cereal or pastries at breakfast.
They were, however , the only place of the 3 we stayed at that made up our room and replenished our refreshments tray (which we had to ask for along with a hair drier).  We d booked an executive room and on arrival we were given room 212.  A dimly lit room without the expected garden view or the walk in shower.  We enquired at reception about moving to a room with either or both and we re told they had none to offer but could upgrade us to a room with a walk in shower but no garden view.  We looked at room 107 and took it.  Room 107 is the poor relation of the 100 rooms. They re all suites with names as well as numbers. That said it was a comfortable room with plenty of space and storage.  The main downer is the lack of hot water.  It suffers from being at the end of the run apparently and so you have to run the taps/bath/shower for some time before hot water arrives.
The rainfall shower is one of the largest we ve ever seen and the bath too with excellent toiletries.

As stated the tables are well spread in the restaurant and they re operating a reservation set up.
The food was still quite varied although the menu didn t change in the 3 nights we were there and certainly plentiful.  Breakfast was also limited but delicious, my tip is to ask for your bacon well done.
My issue was the look of the dining furniture. I don t know if this is their usual stuff but it s totally out of character to the intrinsic quality of the manor, as is the god awful industrial kitchen style of the bar !! Who on earth thought an aluminium bar would look good in a Downtown Abbey style establishment?  We did find the staff friendly and efficient but there were times when no one seemed to be about, maybe they re running on reduced staff.  All in all a pleasant experience and one we may repeat.

Restaurant evening meal

Our only negative reservation was that there did not seem to be any reasonable standard of dress at the evening meal. Accepting that the weather was extremely hot I object to men dining in shorts and trainers in the restaurant .

No review title

I thought the hotel staff and the hospitality were very good particularly given the current circumstances. Food and wine were also good. COVID safety measures were sensible and appropriate although I do not think menus should be reused. My only complaint was that I was not sent an email invoice as requested.