Hotels near National Trust - The Children＇s Country House at Sudbury, Ashbourne

Breakfast is not really included as such. Only the continental buffet. This is cereal, fruits, cereal bars, baked items and a large selection of cakes, including mince pies, which was odd for breakfast. The hot breakfast requires a surcharge to be paid, something I’ve never experienced before. The full English would be best described as part English breakfast, with no sausages, tomatoes, or mushrooms included which is a bit of an insult when you’re paying a surcharge. I can’t fault the service, or anything else, but this felt a bit naughty to be doing.

Just a quick one night stay to watch a band across the road at the Flowerpot. Hotel is easy to find the NCP over the road is very cheap to park and you get 20 percent off with the hotel validating your card I was £4.70 for around 24hrs. The room we were allocated was absolutely spotless and the bed was comfortable there was a ironing board and iron in the room that was handy. The only real complaint was that there was a wedding on and the hotel hadn’t seemed to have catered for the amount of people using the bar and restaurant in the evening and the lone barman couldn’t cope so we back into town for a drink as you would have been waiting all night.

Bit of a mixed-bag this one. I stayed in the twin room for 2 nights. The room oddly looks as though it’s been lifted and deposited direct from a Premier Inn (but smaller). It’s dark due to the use of dark purple and dark wood on almost everything. The bathroom is fresh and contemporary though. There’s a generous selection of teas and coffee plus biscuits. One of the reasons I chose the Fountains tearoom and B&B was because of the tearoom downstairs. I arrived, after a long tiring journey, at 3.30pm thinking I was just in time to grab a snack in the tearoom, however Iike a lot of visitors if you read the comments dating back years, I was told by a very offhand older member of staff the kitchen was closed. It closes at 3pm, so all the info and literature stating that tearoom hours are 9am to 4pm are misleading to say the least. (The owner later stated that ‘our staff have families to go home to’). When I asked I was also told that breakfast was from 9am, even though this staff member was now fully aware I was a guest, and I mentioned I needed to be somewhere by 10am the next morning. So the next morningI hung around to 9am and dashed down to breakfast to find other guests already eating breakfast, a (different) member of staff said guests were served from 8.30am! I complained by text to the owner who responded very quickly saying she’d look into it. The owner could not be faulted for responding to queries/complaints - the evening before I’d rung her asking how the heating worked as it was cold and she came out straight away to check the thermostat in the hall. The breakfast was prompt, hot and very tasty. Other negative points: The mattress had springs starting to poke up, the pillows were thin and lumpy (they’re cheap enough to buy for goodness’ sake). The thinnish duvet (no sheets apart from the fitted one on the mattress) only just covered the bed, so wouldn’t be great for larger visitors. I personally will not be staying again.