Stoke Place

We had our wedding here on Sunday 24th November. Luckily, we did the dry hire option and drafted in our own suppliers to deliver an exceptional day, but we had so many problems with the actual venue and its staff both in the build-up to the wedding and the day itself. Our first contact was with Tracy, who was experienced and knew what she was doing but unfortunately, she went on maternity leave and what followed was nothing short of a circus. In the following months we had around 4 different points of contact who each told us a different story every time we asked them questions about the venue and what we can execute with suppliers. Responses to questions took weeks which generated a lot of stress when trying to plan our wedding. As part of the dry hire, we were told that the only thing the venue will help with is putting the chairs out for the ceremony and turning the music on / off when the bride enters which is fine. A few days before the day itself the wedding planning manager told us she won’t be working on our day and it will be whoever is on the rota. The deal to put out the chairs wasn’t communicated to the duty manager and he refused to help, meaning the bride laid out the ceremony room herself plus clean up birthday cake from all the sofas and floor that had been left there from the previous party. The duty manager did a good job turning the music on and off but then decided to stick around to the end of the event and came very close to ruining the entire thing. Our caterer caught him red handed drinking our alcohol that we supplied for guests and throughout the course of the evening his behaviour became increasingly erratic, unpredictable and aggressive. I looked around at one point to see him shouting so aggressively in the face of one of the barmen, because the barmen put beers on the bar for people to grab. The duty manager was literally leaning into the face of the barman and looking to fight him over this “issue” even though the bar staff were bringing round beers all night. He started falsely accusing random guests of doing cocaine, which I can categorically say was incorrect. These guests were meeting the wider family for the first time, I can absolutely assure you they were not doing drugs at our wedding. The duty manager had also accused two girls of swearing at the receptionist. We haven’t been able to confirm whether this actually happened or not, if it did, we fully agree that this isn’t acceptable under any circumstances but his reaction to it is a sackable offence. He threatened to shut the evening down, turn off the music and call the police for starters, although fortunately a few level-headed adults were there to keep him in check long enough for the wedding to reach it’s planned end time. But then after most the guests had left, he followed the bride’s mother and bride’s sister to their room and made them both cry with his aggressive threats and abuse. He stood them outside their room for the best part of an hour loudly arguing with them and upsetting them deeply, on the day of their daughter’s / sister’s wedding, with no regard to how it was making them feel or even the other guests sleeping in the vicinity. He then banned them from the venue and threatened to call the police. I wasn’t aware of this happening, but bumped into him on the stairway and he gave me an ultimatum – either I get the guests to leave or he will call the police and have them arrested. Baring in mind this is on my wedding day, at around 12.30am and he wants me to do this. If he had an issue with this allegation against the guests who were rude to staff, there is a way to appropriately deal with it. Trying to shut down the entire wedding, making the mother and sister of the bride cry and stand them outside their hotel room humiliating them, banning them from the venue and calling the police is absolutely not the way under any circumstances. After it had all cooled down the sister even had the maturity to go and find him, take responsibility of other peoples actions and shake his hand in order to put an end to this situation. He swore at her and banned her from the venue again. She managed to record him arguing with his colleagues at this time, who were asking him what the hell is wrong with him and why is he always drunk on duty. When it got to the morning, the two girls who allegedly swore at the staff member were having breakfast and the duty manager walks in. He didn’t say a word to them. So after all of that, he didn’t even have the courage to approach them and deal with the situation, he just wanted to humiliate women and try and ruin other people’s night. The bride also bumped into Alison (another duty manager who we had contact with in the build up to the wedding) and she challenged the bridge saying she heard there were issues yesterday – the duty manager was asked to help out with the chairs hahahahaha!!! Nothing about any of his behaviour whatsoever. Despite the absolute SHAMBLES staff, we still managed to have a wonderful day, our suppliers delivered to the full and everyone enjoyed the day which we were delighted over. For anyone reading this considering having their wedding here – DON’T. There are plenty of other venues that are nicer, better kept and well managed. I can promise you none of this is exaggerated for effect or fabricated. It’s with a heavy heart I had to write this but it can’t go without consequence for the staff working there. These are people’s wedding days you are dealing with, it’s not a night down the pub! The duty manager should be identified by the management team and sacked immediately, with an apology on behalf of the venue sent to us.

Stayed here for work in February. Upon checking in I was advised that I had a reservation for 2 nights, however I had only booked in for one night. After about 5 minutes of searching for the confirmation email, it became apparent that I was in fact only booked in for 1 night, however the receptionist was trying to book me in under another guests name. After checking in and finding my room, initial thoughts was that the room looked nice and cosy. However after a couple of minutes I noticed there were quite a few dead flies around which I disposed off. I then went for dinner in the restaurant and when I returned the room was full of live flies. They were on the bed, walls, lampshades, floor and toilet. It was quite disturbing. I called reception and explained the situation to which they replied that there were no more rooms available. I then asked if they had some fly spray to deal with the issue, which they did not. Not long after they called me back and I moved to another room which was apparently an upgrade. Although this room was bigger, it was filthy with dead ladybirds, dust over the units, stains on the wall in the room and bathroom. Under the bed (which you could visibly see when in the bathroom), there was lumps of fluff and decomposing rose petals. God knows how long since that room had, had a good clean. Looking for a positive - the breakfast was very nice and the lady managing the breakfast sitting was lovely.

We recently stayed at Stoke Place Hotel, in one of the garden rooms that had patio access. Unfortunately, our experience was quite disappointing. While I want to commend the receptionist for being polite and welcoming upon our late arrival around 11 PM, the issues we faced during our stay overshadowed this positive interaction. Firstly, the air conditioning unit in our room was not functioning properly. Although the receptionist was able to turn it on at our arrival, shortly after it overheated, and despite our attempts to adjust the temperature, it eventually stopped working entirely. We ended up feeling uncomfortably cold throughout the night. We also encountered problems with the television, as the volume could not be increased beyond level 4, making it virtually silent and preventing us from enjoying any entertainment. The most concerning issue was with the shower tap. I struggled to turn it on, and it took ages to get warm water. Unfortunately, I was unable to turn it off, which left me feeling very uncomfortable and cold in the bathroom. We decided to leave the hotel and return home, had enough issues. We left the hotel at 7:30 AM, with the water still running in the bathroom, missing out on breakfast and our plans to stay for another night. I informed the receptionist at checkout about the ongoing issue with the shower, suggesting someone must go and check as soon as possible. Additionally, the cleanliness of our room was lacking, as the floor was dirty, there was a mark on the bedsheet, and the pillows were uncomfortable and too thin, leading to a poor sleeping experience. The room was overall very tired and definitely needs improvement. I believe it is essential for hotels to address basic amenities, and I hope the management takes this feedback seriously to improve the experience for future guests. We would not recommend staying here based on our experience.

We visited on a Thursday and first impressions were of a very grand place. We checked in at the main house but were staying in the chalets close to the entrance. First impressions weren’t great as there were lots of dirty plates and glasses outside our room from the previous visitors. On entering our room it was very large with a huge bed, it was chilly in there and smelt quite damp. My husband returned to reception to see if there was a different room, the lady on reception was understanding and gave us the key to next door but it wasn’t as spacious. There were portable electric heaters in the room so we turned them up and turned the radiator on in the bathroom. It soon started to warm up and I ran a bath with some strong oils so the smell of damp soon wasn’t noticed. Fortunately the curtains were very heavy to keep out drfts as the windows were very dated. The furniture was very tired but it didn’t affect our stay, there was a kettle and fridge with tea & coffee sachets. My husband went to use the large shower but it was only running cold water, the bath water was nice and hot though. We walked over to the main house for dinner and were shown to the bar area with us having our dog with us, it was pleasant enough and we were happy to eat in there, and there was direct access to the gardens and lake which looked beautiful, even better I would imagine in good weather. We ordered drinks and ordered starters and main course which didn’t take long to come, they tasted delicious and just the right size portion. Our mains arrived with a very friendly waitress who was kind to our dog. My rib eye steak was perfect and my husband said his sea bass was delicious and perfectly cooked with tasty flavours. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meal with pleasant music playing. We made our way back to the chalet which was nice a cosy with the heaters being on, the bed was huge and very comfortable with a tv to watch right in front of the bed. We both had a pleasant nights sleep. We packed up and went over to the main house for breakfast and were seated in the adjoining lounge to the restaurant, it was very nice and our waitress was very attentive and friendly. She offered to have sausages cooked for our dog but he was very happy with the choice of melon from the buffet table. Our breakfasts soon arrived which were delicious and our waitress was constantly checking we had hot coffee. All in all what started as a bit disappointing was a fantastic stay in beautiful surroundings with very attentive staff. Another bonus was bumping into charlotte church and David Potts who were staying there. We are often working in the area so will definitely book to stay here again, maybe when the weather gets better they’ll be able to get some fresh air into the rooms to get rid of the damp smell or diffusers! The staff at this hotel work hard and are very friendly, I hope they receive a percentage of the service charge as we didn’t have any cash on us to leave a tip.

Truly average. We have stayed here before, twice. It has obviously changed hands because it has deteriorated significantly. We had one of the two junior suites. The room was filthy as was the bathroom. No toiletries except tied down gel and no room comforts other than very basic tea and coffee making. The rooms and indeed hotel need a really deep clean and refurbished. It is tired, dirty and really basic. Dinner was average at best. The icing on the cake of this very poor offering was being charged 10% on everything extra rather than a 10% discount which we were entitled to having used the code 'bookdirect'. The service charge was refunded but I still waiting for the discount. My advice...find somewhere else to spend your money