Mansfield House Hotel

Met our needs

.

We stayed in tower for 2 nights - quiet and spacious room. Lovely old house on outskirts hawick. Pet friendly without additional charge. Doors were lying open to other rooms and they all looked lovely. Unfortunately restaurant was closed on both the sat and sun which didn't know until after booking. We had eaten there before and were looking forward to trying again. Hotel is about 30 min walk to centre where a few other choices (although limited off season on sun). Is a nice path along river. Small touches would make a difference though to experience - showing guests to room on arrival and asking if they need any help (vs just being handed key); replacing worn items; ensuring a hairdryer in room; upgrading artwork and accessories to reflect the creativity in the area - (consider showcasing/ supporting elocal artists work); have some real plants instead just artifical; fix broken handrails and paving on the paths in the grounds. Breakfast was fine as had choice cooked items although was more limited than i've experienced elsewhere in similar class hotels e.g. smoked salmon and poached eggs was just that rather than eggs benedict. Appreciate it is hard in this industry but it is the small touches that you remember that would push it up a star.

Good rooms good food good price

The property looks a lot more impressive from the outside than it does on the inside. The room we stayed in was tired, and dated, and looked in need of a refresh. The room was small, and as with a number of lower market hotels there was no mini fridge. Only being there for one night we could live with that, but for a longer stay it would have been a nice option to have. But the main problem was the noise. We could see that there were not many people staying at the hotel, by the number of cars outside, but for some reason, they appeared to have put all of the guests into the same area of the hotel. Now I get why you might do this to make things easy for the cleaner, but thats a problem when you have very thin walls and poor sound insulation. You could hear people's conversations, people walking about, and we had the lovely experience of hearing one of the guests with a hacking cough, coughing all night (at one point I was going to get up and ask him if he wanted a drink to help his throat). As if that wasn't enough the wind got up, and every time the wind blew, there was a door banging open and close somewhere in the hotel. Coupled to this, the wind rattled the windows against the window frames, leading to a symphony of noise throughout the night. When we checked out and left in the morning the member of staff (when she turned up at the desk) didn't even bother to ask how our stay had been. The funny thing is that it wasn't even cheap so no excuses there either.