Down Hall Hotel, Spa & Estate

Smashing Christmas Break

Location: Few miles from Bishop Storford you need GPS to find the hotel. Situated just outside a pretty little village where there is a well stocked Co-op, tea rooms and Pub.

1st impression : A sweeping drive takes you to the front of this imposing Manor House, ample parking lovely well kept grounds. Front door at main entrance is a bit grubby would benefit from the brass work being polished to give that luxury well kept feeling on arrival. Huge reception hall with leather sofas and an open fire, check in desks bit of a let down tucked away in one corner and not quite in keeping with the rest of this hotel. Polite check in although more information would have been appreciated, nethertheless for a busy hotel a couple of days after Christmas it was to be expected.  This establishment caters for Weddings and we had one every day for the 3 nights we stayed. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the reception lounge watching the Wedding parties and their guests arrive in all their finery, The hotel is large and the catering team are well organised so the Wedding receptions had little impact on our stay.

Restaurant: Pleasant surroundings with a nice choice of exceptionally cooked food for dinner, somewhat lacking in service on the 1st night but improved as the days went on, I suspect that less experienced staff were brought in to cover the holiday period which is understandable for the time of year. Breakfast is a mixture of table service and buffet style, on the 1st morning it was rather chaotic and service was extremely slow and disorganised, this improved as the week went on and more experienced staff returned so I would say overall the food and service was very good, maybe the hotel would benefit from having a senior staff member overseeing the breakfast routine coupled with later sittings during the holiday periods. Another nice touch was the flexibility to use the dining allowance to have dinner in the lounge or bar area from the bar menu, food selections are less formal although as equally delicious and well cooked as the al a carte menu and made a nice change on the 3rd night when we returned from a day out. Afternoon Tea on the 2nd day was a lovely experience service was exceptional excellent teas and coffee, scones and sandwiches were very good but the cakes and desserts were of poor quality surprising considering the rest of the food at the hotel was exceptional. We throughly enjoyed it though and our waitress was a breath of fresh air.

Bar: Fully stocked well equipped bar with efficient friendly staff, comfortable surroundings lots of nooks and crannies with tables chairs sofas etc. Did get rather busy at times but staff were more than happy to provide table service in the lounge and we were extremely well looked after.

Rooms: Clean well appointed with all the usual amenities, bottled water, mini fridge, ironing board and iron, tea and coffee, hairdryer, room service, TV, huge comfortable bed, large his and hers bathroom bit tired but spotlessly clean with thick towels and nice toiletries. Only problem we had was the window latch in our room was broken and the window was stuck open about 4 inches allowing the cold wind to whistle through, although we reported it to housekeeping and reception on arrival and everyday thereafter maintenance never came and being late December it was really cold we had to resort to placing a bath towel along the windowsill to close the gap and tone down the constant draft. Overall a clean comfortable room.

Spa/ Gym: I feel it's important to point out that the hotel description gives the impression that guests have the use of the spa and pool, there is no actual pool at this hotel the spa and plunge pool are in a totally separate area from the gym and can only be accessed if you book spa therapies or treatments. Information regarding this was limited and we were denied acsess to the facilities to have a look around considering we had been looking forward to this part of our break and it was the reason we booked this hotel we were somewhat disappointed.  The gym however is open to residents and you are given an access code on arrival it is located on the lower ground floor level it's compact but really well equipped and does have a small sauna and steam room but no pool.

Overall: A lovely relaxed hotel with excellent cuisine and warm friendly staff, in need of a bit of TLC in some of the public areas but overall a really enjoyable stay made better by the OPL extras and I have no hesitation in recommending it for families couples and friends. Personal score of 7/8 out of 10

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The Hotel has a very high standard of cleanliness, exactly what you would expect. There were 2 disappointing factors for us. The staff were not very attentive or quick at serving, although we had heard that they were very busy the previous few days, so were maybe a little knackered. The main disappointment was that we were booked to eat in the restaurant for 3 nights, and although the food was excellent, it was the same menu every night.

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