The Penny Farthing Hotel

Great location, close to restaurants and shopping facilities. Great value hotel

Very comfortable for a one night stay. Central location in the town and reasonable value.

Quite a bizarre experience. I am seasoned traveller through business staying all over UK. I don't normally do reviews but this needs one. Pros: the rooms are very nice, beds are really comfortable, big enough for single traveller, bathrooms lovely, furniture lovely, TV is huge. Cons: I have never experienced a hotel with no reception, I really don't know if this is a thing but that is my experience. You have to use app to get keycode for your room door. In principal, great, but technology has to work, when it does not work, you need plan B. Got my keycode and through the maze i found room. My key code never worked. Tried at least 10 times. I called both contact numbers, no response and message service was full. No call back. I head back to room, try again, after couple more attempts, it works. I go out for dinner, come back, same problem but this time for outside door also, not just room, tried calling again got through to someone at The Kings Arms (wherever that is), he was great, helped out, was able to confirm i had made many failed attempts to gain entry, managed to get code working after couple of attempts and i was in, YAY. One of the weirdest experiences when staying at hotel. Can only reiterate again, room itself is really good, hence 3 star rating, would have been 5 if doors worked. Once again, if you have technology, it must work.

I booked 3 rooms for myself and my wife, a friend, and my mother. Initially I had spoken to the hotel to ask how to reserve a disabled accessible room for my mother, and was advised to email the generic site......... All good I thought ..... Erm no. There are at least 2 brick steps from the car park to the outside of the room, and then more steps into the room. The only good part was he carpark was at the back of the hotel, and you could get within a few metres of the steps and room. If you are a wheelchair user - avoid this hotel. 2 of the 3 electric door codes did not work when we arrived, and we had to call the 24 hour telephone number (no one on site) to get new (and much longer) codes. So if you do have to ring them for a new code, have a pen and paper (or another mobile phone's notes) ready. This also happened to someone else who arrived 03:00hrs (ish)..... It was clear they were also displeased with the faulty codes, as the frustration was heard in our room from down the passage way. The shower didn't work on the wall, and it was either very hot, or cold. The mould was moderate on the tiles and bath, and the bath panel was rotten. Having been in many other hotels, my standards are not that of a home, but to other company's, and its far worse than the older Travelodges or chains at the motorway services which have not been updated in many years. There was also no lock on the bathroom door, and the hole where the barrel of the lock had been was blocked with tissue!

I have written to the hotel to give them a chance to rectify the situation, but I have not received a response. The room itself was clean and pleasant, and the ease of getting into the room in out of hours time was great. However, the toilet in my room was severely stained. My shower didn't work; the plumbing is completely wrong. I booked breakfast, but when I arrived, I was told it was a 10min walk down the road to a local pub, which I wasn't expecting and didn't have time for. It very much had a hostel feel to it, rather than a hotel. And maybe the fact that I was in the room on the outside right next to reception and in the walkway changed my experience too. The price I paid doesn't reflect the quality of the service and stay; if I had paid half the price, I wouldn't be complaining.