Find the Cheap Barningham Hotels

Always driven past this hotel en route to Scotland thinking how lovely it would be to stay there. Well how wrong could we were. Arrived at 6 pm on a Saturday evening as expected by hotel arrival time arranged. We had booked the last room which was a classic twin room no 21. No one at reception, waited about 5 to 20 minutes then had to go and ask someone who was putting glasses away in the bar . She came and booked us in and was a very pleasant lady . Got to our room and thought of this seems quite nice. Bathroom dated, sink had slight damage mark with a sticky yellow stain which I started to clean showed it could have been cleaned quite easily . The pull cord to switch light on didn't even have a handle on it was just the cord. Duvets so thin it might as well been a sheet and pillows not much better. Mattress to be fair, not too bad. We had booked a table for evening meal so popped to the bar and found 3 couples waiting to be served and we waited again for about 20 mins only to be told by the same lady that had booked us in that the bar lad was on his break. No she did come back to serve us all and the lad came back too so drinks were served. Food very disappointed to pay £17.95 for so called beer battered fish and chips with the smallest pot of mushy peas and tartare sauce. The whole meal was awful and when asked if ok I decided not to to say yes and explained how bad it was and most of the fish was left as it was tasteless soggy batter and quite cold chips and peas. Once again the same nice lady said oh dear and just took plates away. I also said if I hadn't paid cash up front I would have refused to pay. No response so we left chuckling away to ourselves and just couldn't believe how bad things were. Now we realise it's an old building and when you arrive it is lovely on the outside. Unfortunately for us the last room in the hotel was substandard and for £124 we paid we felt robbed . Even when we left there was someone at reception but no acknowledgement of our stay or goodbye was uttered. Needless to say we won't be returning.Im sure that won't bother the owners but hey ho you live and learn. We did laugh as it reminded us of Acorn Antiques and Fawlty Towers. No offence intended towards the staff as they all seemed to be doing multiple jobs and when you got their attention they were mostly pleasant. Must try harder comes to mind Positive note Parking ok.

Having visited the inn a couple of times in the summer, when I received good service and great food, I suggested the Red Well as a place to meet some friends for a pre Christmas meal. Drinks order came quickly without any issues and we ordered our food. The waitress then returned to inform me that the only veggie option on theChristmas menu (other than a salad..) was not available so I had to order from the main menu. Starters came and went without any issues though the creamy garlic mushrooms, whilst edible, were disappointing as they had no garlic flavour and the sauce was made with cream cheese which is a cheap, corner cutting approach to creamy sauce. No big deal though. Then the mains came.. the Christmas dinner was a massive mound of frozen carrots and “quite poor” in the words of my friends eating it. My “curried roasted veg covered in mash potatoes had no curry flavour, no roasted veg and most importantly no sauce. It was a bowl of rock hard flavourless chickpeas with a little spinach added but nothing else, dry as a bone and simply not edible. Waitress offered to bring manageress over and she agree to remove it from my bill but nothing was offered as an alternative to me. So I had to go without the main part of my main meal. The other 2 meals looked nice but were cold. My friends didn’t bother to request they were warmed up as they’d seem the limited response I had received when making my comments about the food. We asked for the music to be turned down slightly as speaker was above us and waitress went off, and music stayed loud. When she eventually returned we asked again and the waitress told us “we can’t turn it down as those people at the other side of the restaurant have asked us to turn it up”, then walked away…When they finally returned to clear the table we were not asked if we wanted anything else so we kept chatting. When they returned later again and we were asked if they could get us anything else we said yes could we have 2 mins to look at dessert menu, only to be told 2 minutes later that the kitchen had stopped serving nearly an hour ago so we couldn’t have desserts. I suggested to the waitress that perhaps they should have told us sooner (especially as I’d basically missed my main course) and she shrugged and walked away… so we asked for the bill which came with 4 chocolates. However, there were 5 of us so they couldn’t even get that right! We commented and the manageress said she’d bring more but didn’t. Then as we left and one of my party said she was still waiting for her chocolate, the manageress got stroppy and slammed the chocolate into my friends hand. It is rare to receive such consistently bad service, and to be served pretty poor food too. Massive shame for this business as the 5 of us are all local and could have returned with other groups but none of us will set foot in there again whilst under the same management. There are too many good places to go to waste your time and money in a place as poor as this.