Crouchers Country Hotel

We rang nearly a year ago to try to arrange a pre-wedding meal for a large number of guests. After the fourth time I called, I finally managed to speak to someone who seemed to know what they were talking about. I was promised a quote and thought we had finally found the perfect place for our pre-wedding meal. Two weeks went by with no email, so I called again and was once again told that someone would get back to me. Nothing. Fast forward nearly a year, and I have now received a phone call asking if I still want to go ahead with my booking — THREE DAYS before the date it was apparently booked for. As someone who works in the Michelin world and has experience running multiple sites, I’m genuinely baffled by this level of communication and organisation. I cannot understand how a large pre-wedding booking can apparently sit on a system for almost a year, yet nobody thinks to contact the customer beforehand to confirm the arrangements, numbers, menu, timings or anything else you would reasonably expect when organising an event. Thankfully, I had already arranged something elsewhere, because based on this experience I have absolutely no confidence that the meal would have been organised properly. I also asked on three separate occasions for the General Manager to call me, and on every occasion that call never came. It’s a real shame because the venue itself is lovely, but the management and communication have been incredibly disappointing. When you’re organising an important event, you need to be able to rely on people to follow things up and communicate with you. A complete joke of an experience, and ultimately I’m very glad I made alternative arrangements.

We had a wonderful two night stay for our 55th wedding anniversary. The staff stood out. They were all kind, friendly and very helpful. The food was second to none and the room we stayed in was spacious and very comfortable. We also loved the grounds and surroundings. A lovely place which we highly recommend.

This hotel did not come up to expectations or website promise and our stay was a disappointment, overall. We booked a Russet Garden room and it did not resemble the light and airy image potrayed on the website. There were some positives and I'll start with them. The staff were polite, friendly and generally helpful. Breakfast was good, with only a few issues: they ran out of orange juice on the second day and, no, there was no more avaliable that day. Pastries ran out early on the third day but they warmed up three pains just for me. The vegetarian/vegan breakfast was variable from day to day and did not conform to the menu description, for example, there were two sausages on day one, one on day two and none on day three. Always a large pile of wilted spinach though 😕 The Cider House Kitchen, on site but a rather rough walk away from the main buildings (don't wear heels) served very nice pizzas, but very slowly. Fortunately there is an excellent Indian restaurant just across the road from the hotel and unconnected to it. The setting of the hotel is pleasant, apart from the fact that it's right next to a very busy road and there is serious traffic noise. And that's the end of the positives. Moving on to what we didn't like, let's start with the room. There was insufficient shelf and hanging space in the bathroom. Sticking with the bathroom, there was a non-functioning whirlpool bath which must be horribly unhygienic and the bath was also very marked and appeared dirty though probably wasn't. There was no toilet brush. In the bedroom, one of two wall hooks was broken. The sockets are extraordinarily inconveniently positioned and you can't plug a device in to charge anywhere near the bed. In order to plug in heated hair devices, straighteners etc, you have to grovel around under what passes for a dressing table and unplug either the lamp or the fridge. There is nothing to protect the wooden surface from heated devices. One bedside cabinet was jammed sideways between the bed and the wardrobe so that the drawers could not be accessed. Bedside lighting was inadequate. The bed maker needs urgent lessons because the bed was never made properly, with at least 12" of empty duvet cover at the top and a bottom sheet that was never tucked in tight, always wrinkled and creased. This is the age of the fitted sheet and you might want to give thought to this. The Nespresso machine leaked. The bathroom door squeaked and creaked, making it impossible to avoid causing a disturbance on a middle of the night visit. Moving on to food, which I have already covered in part. The Potager restaurant, which we saved for the last night and my birthday, was so poor. I'm vegetarian and, apart from soup, there was one starter only. Apart from salad, there was one main course. I thought I'd teleported back to the 1980s. When I enquired which of the desserts might be vegetarian, because there was no indication of this on the menu, I was told none of them have meat in them. True story. I mentioned gelatin and animal rennet and the waitress then agreed to talk to the kitchen. My husband, who is not vegetarian, reported that the rest of the menu was dull and uninspired and could also have come from the 1980s. And this meal was NOT cheap. We should have gone back to the Indian. All in all, what should have been a special surprise was anything but and we don’t recommend this hotel and would never go back.