Anchor Hotel

Hotel room was small, old fashioned and dismal. An attempt had been made to freshen up emulsion on walls, but paint was left on the skirting boards. The doors paintwork needed washing and painting. The shower needed improvement, the filler around base clearly been done by someone with no experience. No curtains at window and filler obvious where curtain rail had been. The bedding was clean but was very crumpled and no attempt had been made to iron The owner was pleasant and the one member of staff we saw was really cheerful. The whole hotel is rundown and owner is clearly struggling. The write up is misleading as this hotel has no atmosphere at all. It’s a shame as hotel has lots of potential because of its location next to the river

To be honest we were a bit disappointed with the hotel. At first sight it looked a bit run down and this continued once inside. However the room was clean and spacious for our needs (one night) although the lack of plugs a bit frustrating. Evening meal was a bit disappointing but breakfast was good. Very quiet village but this was early September. Well situated to visit Hadrian’s Wall.

The room was comfortable and the en-suite good however the furniture looked shabby. The cooked breakfast was very nice. The negative and which would prevent me from returning was the amount of youths that were using the bar in the evening (Saturday night stay). It was like a scene from Waterloo Road! Mainly boys who were very noisy. Thankfully they were not staying at the hotel but the noise was still present (outside) after 1am .

• No curtains, only white blinds, so the room was very bright from around 4:30 am. • The shower was either freezing cold or scalding hot. • The shower drain was blocked and water remained in the tray for hours. • The towels were very small – I’m 6ft tall and couldn’t wrap one around myself after a shower. • We stayed for two nights but didn’t receive fresh towels on the second day. • There was no fridge in the room and the staff couldn’t provide one. • Breakfast starts at 7 am, so we couldn’t have it before leaving for our hike. • The beds were very soft and spongy, making them uncomfortable to sleep on. • The lobby constantly smelled of fried food and cigarette smoke. The most disappointing part was the restaurant and how our concerns were handled. After completing a charity hike, I ordered a steak at around 8 pm. It was poor quality, looked like it had been frozen, quickly defrosted and only lightly cooked. It was tough, tasteless and honestly one of the worst steaks I’ve ever had. I started vomiting from at 2 am, and had diarrhoea throughout the night. I can’t say for certain what caused my illness, but the steak was the only freshly cooked meal I’d eaten that day. At check out, we politely raised our concerns with the owner, but instead of showing empathy or apologising, he immediately became defensive and dismissed any possibility that the meal could have been related. We weren’t looking for compensation just concern for a guest and a willingness to investigate.

Very staff, great breakfast