Stanley House Hotel & Spa

We stayed here for Valentine’s Day and had a lovely stay in our room. Bed was comfy as always. The bath is spacious and amenities special. Sev was very welcoming on reception, completely different to our stay the year before. Victoria at breakfast was so helpful. I was struggling with mobility with a fractured ankle and she allowed us to stay in the comfy area and moved tables around for us to make me comfy. She really went over and above what I expected and it made the hugest difference. I’m only sad it has taken me this long to write the review. We didn’t eat in the restaurant in the evening this time due to our experience the year before but I may try again in future if we go for not a special occasion. A really pleasant stay.

I did make the staff member on reception aware when we left today that I would be sending this email as we were extremely disappointed with our experience at Stanley House this weekend. Had there been one thing that we weren’t satisfied with I probably wouldn’t have contacted you in this way. However, I feel that given the total cost of our stay and the number of issues, you need to know so that these can be resolved. We found Stanley House via the Spa Seekers website, after booking through the website the email confirmation I received stated that it was my responsibility to contact the venue with regards to timings. I sent an email on 30/04/24 stating that I was contacting Stanley House regarding timings and that we would likely arrive between 1-2 pm. I allowed a few days but I did not receive a reply to my email and therefore phoned up. I spoke to a lady in the spa reception and explained that I had emailed the info@ email address (that I had got from the footer of your own website), to be told “Well, that’s the wrong email address, I’ve never heard of that email address”, That isn’t actually of my concern, that is something which should be taken up in-house, however, she did seem to be able to read my email back to me from what she could see on her screen. Anyway, I explained what my email was regarding and was told that she would speak to the hotel team and call me back - I asked that if I didn’t answer the phone she could email me the information instead as I may be seeing to my baby. I didn’t receive a call, missed call or email following this. A few days later my husband made a phone call and was given the following details: Arrive for 13:00-14:00. Thermal at 14:00 Massage at 16:00 Dinner at 19:00 Breakfast next day Afternoon tea at 12:30 On arrival at the hotel, we went to reception hoping to check in, as I had emailed and my husband had called and confirmed that we were hoping to arrive between 1-2 pm. We were told by the receptionist “You’re early, check-in isn’t until 3 pm”, which is fine but had someone confirmed this, we probably wouldn’t have rushed to get to get there from the other side of the country. We were told that we could go and get a drink and that she would come and find us ‘if’ the room was ready early, we didn’t have high hopes for this and alas, she didn’t come to find us. We made our way to the spa just before 2 pm and were taken through to the guest lounge where we were asked to fill in forms and wait for someone to show us the facilities. As part of the booking, my husband was told that the use of the thermal spa was from 2 until 4 pm, however filling in forms, changing etc all ate into this time. We felt that maybe we should have been told to arrive 15-20 mins earlier than our booked time, plus had we had access to our hotel room, we could have changed into our swimwear and put a suitable covering over before arriving at the spa. We also obviously needed our luggage with us as it contained our swimwear, theref

Had afternoon tea today, what a total disappoin**ent! Took over 15 minutes to receive our 1st drinks order of 2 cokes and 1 water. Food order taken, again took 15 minutes. This was pre-ordered! Consisted of 4 finger sandwiches each: Smoked salmon on white sliced bread Egg mayo on brown sliced Chicken with according to the waitress, "some sort of pesto" Grated cheese with chutney. Not inventive at all! Bread dry on surface, no real flavours in the sandwiches. Then to the "scones"! Solid is the best way to describe them, uncooked dough inside. Sent back. 20 minutes later, new scones appeared, better but plain not fruit so boring and uninteresting. Raspberry jam, not strawberry, clotted cream not as expected. Waited a further 25 minutes to be served 1/2 glass of prosecco. 2nd round of drinks deducted from bill as gesture. It was obvious that the 2 weddings were taking precedence and the staffing levels were totally inadequate for the other guests. All waiting staff were young teenagers with no apparent supervision or understanding of customer service or needs. Thus venue has closed before and will again. I'll not be going back and I suggest others contemplating whether to visit, just save your money.

Today I attend Stanley House with my family for afternoon tea. We arrived and waited about 15 minutes for drinks and then following the drinks about 20 minutes later came the afternoon tea which I can all best explain as an absolutely poor selection of sandwiches that were both stale along with desserts and puddings that look like they come off the shelf at Costco. This was a terrible experience after the tea was delivered to the table. We had to wait literally 12 minutes before we got plates brought this to the attention of the manager who didn’t seem that bothered at the time and she simply walked away with a disconcerning grin. Most definitely will never be back to this place and such an awful shame has came several years ago and it was outstanding. If I could give this zero stars and I probably would as there was no attempt to rectify such a shambles of an afternoon tea. I simply would not recommend it! avoid……. To prevent disappoin**ent

We had an afternoon tea bought as a present for my 70th birthday so was so looking forward to this special treat at what should have been a prestigious hotel. Unfortunately it was more like afternoon tea at fawlty towers. Staff very young & inexperienced, (had to ask for side plates & water) Coffee Luke warm, minute portions, with rock hard scones. I am not an aficionado on afternoon teas but of the half dozen or so I have had over the years, this was definitely the worst!!

Beautiful setting absolutly ruined by the service and staff.... Breakfast tatally unorganised.. No plates, stained cups, coffee machine out of coffee then out of milk. Young staff no idea how to refill it.. Evening meal overpriced and small portions, bar staff were untrained obviously, low stock of alcohol and took 15 mins to get a drink when we were only guests at the bar. Bar closed 10.30pm without any warning. Housekeeping staff need further training as rooms not as clean as expected, crumbs and paper left on carpet. Shower screen full of streaks and water marks on mirror, not what you expect for star rating of hotel. Will not be visiting again and hope management take note of all the negative comments recently left by other guests and make the MANY changes needed...

So sad how this hotel has changed, badly run staff try but are too young and have no idea what they are doing. Saw one member of senior team DRUNK in uniform. NOT good. Food average service terrible, cleanliness slipped decor needs refreshing. Would not advise anyone to stay till owners sort it out

Came for a Spa day. The spa as always was lovely. Very good quality trea**ents. Lovely shower facilities. It is a very small and quiet spa so depends what you want. The rest of the trip was a huge disappoin**ent . This is our third trip here. It was only when we arrived that we were made aware that the grill on the alley restaurant was closed. Only “ pub food “ is now available. On arrival there were only 4 people in the bar area . We waited 20 minutes to be served a coffee despite asking three members of staff. The coffee was weak, cold and my mug was chipped and very badly stained. After the spa we decided to have a snack in the restaurant. Because we hadn’t booked a table we had to sit in the bar area. It was laughable as all tables were empty ! We ordered food and asked to look at the evening menu and promptly cancelled our table for dinner and booked another restaurant in the area. We asked for a bottle of Beaujolais to be told sorry we don’t have much wine in stock. The wines that were available were very average. We had booked a decent room , as we thought! Room 2. The shower is full of mildew which is not acceptable . It is the older part of the hotel but the stone window frames are full of black mould. Sadly this is a “has been “hotel and we will not be returning. Such a shame as the location is lovely

We stayed at Stanley House for 1 night whilst attending a wedding. I won't review the wedding aspect as we were just guests but with regards to our accommodation we had a lovely stay. We were in room 1 in the older building which felt very special with it's roll top bath and secluded position. It had everything we needed including a good coffee machine. The only improvement may be to offer some firmer pillows, my Wife said that the pillows were far too soft for her liking. The building itself was beautiful and we liked the small snug as you walked in (would be lovely in the winter with the fire lit). Breakfast was delicious, the scrambled egg cooked to perfection. All the reception staff were very pleasant, especially the girl when we checked out but unfortunately I didn't catch he name to mention (14/04 10am). Our own wedding anniversary was the day following the wedding so this stay also came as a lovely treat to celebrate it. Thanks.