Dryburgh Abbey

I want to start by saying I love this hotel. My mum got married here in 2011 and it will always be special to our family. I bought my partner here for afternoon tea over the weekend because I wanted to show him the hotel and abbey. I was disappointed with the afternoon tea. We were one of two tables for AFT. When we arrived the waitress gave us a choice of where to sit, she was very friendly but there was no atmosphere in the bar area, no music it was deathly quiet so much so we ended up whispering to each other. I had hoped to upgrade our tea to prosecco but there was no option to do this as we were asked if we wanted tea or coffee and that was it. When tea came out it looked pretty but our waitress didn't go through and explain what we had on our stand, we just had to guess what the cakes were. Sandwiches were tasty but I found tuna, ham, beef and egg unusual choices for afternoon tea. I suppose I was expecting cucumber, cream cheese and the like. Cakes were ok but not very interesting (and we needed to work out what they were). Scones were delicious but I felt the cream could have been decanted into a little dish rather than served in the plastic tubs it came in. We weren't given the option to take our left over cakes home - I suppose we could have asked but there was no one around to ask. There was no check back on our afternoon tea which was a bit of a shame, because it was quiet the lack of service was noticable. As mentioned, we had a nice time, it was my partners first afternoon tea experience but it was just lacking something for me. I will never stop promoting this hotel though as its just so pretty.

Lovely old building but sadly in very poor state of repair. Definitely 3 star hotel, maybe even 2.5. Staff in bar excellent, restaurant food very good, but one of our bedrooms shabby and one on closer inspection found to have lots of long dark hairs all over the duvet cover. Yuck! Night porter changed the cover for a single duvet cover (bed was 2 single duvets not double) but no apologies or anything for horrible state of room. We wait to see what they say in the morning and his breakfast is.

We have stayed here many times over the years and it is now apparent that no obvious work has been carried out to keep on top of its aging. As others have mentioned it being an old building the sound proofing could be better. The hotel is in an ideal location on the banks of the River Tweed. The rooms are generously sized with many having a good outlook. Unfortunately we found the catering standard to be poor with a limited continental breakfast selection which was not regularly restocked. Evening meals were to a fair standard.