Fence Gate Lodge

New Year’s Eve stay with friends. Very warm reception on arrival in torrential rain. Rooms well appointed with excellent heating, then across the road to The Fence Gate Inn. Meal, service and entertainment again all very good. All in all, a great stay and would recommend

Lodge is excellent, the rooms are lovely with great amenities. Room came with ironing board, coffee machine, TV and really comfortable bed. Bathroom was clean and spacious with twin sinks. Would certainly recommend for an overnight stay especially if eating at the restaurant

Room is very clean and hotel is nice and modern. Issues : they charged 15 extra for linen when we booked a room for 2 adults and 2 kids. There was no extra bed, it was the extra charge for pillows / sheet / duvet for the sofabed. I've travelled all over the world and have never been charged for linen especially when the booking didn't specify there would be an extra charge and the booking was for 4. We booked dinner B & B, the dinner was not in the same building but few doors down. No prior notification of this in the booking. Might be an issue for seniors or in the winter to walk down. Not sure the deal with the dinner was any cheaper than buying a la carte.

So the Fence Gate Lodge only gets two stars because the room was lovely - NO other reason! Along with my daughter and her partner we booked a "Lazy Sunday" deal but there was nothing lazy or leisurely about it - more pandemonium than peaceful. I rang a few days before to check how accessible my room was as I explained I had limited mobility. They said they had a function on during the evening of our stay and kindly upgraded us to a better room free of charge to be away from the noise...the only good bit! However, they failed to mention that it wouldn't be possible to get any food in the Lodge itself and that we'd have to go the the Inn up the road (which was too far for me to walk). My husband kindly offered to be designated driver which was disappointing but there was no other choice. We arrived about 3.15 for a Sunday lunch booking at 4.45 and hubby drove us to the Inn. At 4.10 my daughter went through to the restaurant to let them know we had arrived and would come through for our lunch shortly. At 4.40 we went through to be told there was no reservation for us!! The two girls on the restaurant reception had no explanation and said "we only work Sundays" We were kept standing for about 20 minutes (difficult with limited mobility) until they found the manager who eventually worked out that when my daughter had told them we had arrived they had cancelled our booking! There were two weddings on that evening aside from the Birthday party at the Lodge so the place was heaving. We were seated for dinner and, to be fair, that was OK until we came to pay. We had incurred some extra drinks charges and also some supplements over and above the deal we had paid for. My husband gave my daughter his credit card to pay the bill and another 20 minute wait ensued as they couldn't work out how to sort it (never did manage to reconcile it!). While we were dining one party left the restaurant in disgust without paying and several members of staff told us what a terrible day they were having!! After a couple of hours over at the Inn we wanted to go back to the Lodge for the rest of the evening so we rang across the road to se if we could get a drink anywhere. We were told that provided we didn't disturb the Birthday party in any way we could sit and order drinks in Reception. We arrived in Reception and they came to take our drinks order. We ordered some beers but were told that there wasn't any beer as it was all for the Birthday function. Understandably we were a bit put out but asked for some red wine. We were told that they only had Merlot (possibly the only wine in the land I wont drink! We said no the the Merlot but I asked if we were ok to drink a bottle of shiraz that I had in the car from a wine shop visit earlier that day. I was told we could but that we would be charged corkage. I challenged this as I explained that we trying very hard to spend money with them but nothing was available!! They did agree to let us drink the wine a

As group of 6 adults and 2 children, requiring for accommodation including 1 accessible room our experience trying to book was abysmal. The organiser received a quote, once all had agreed the venue and cost, she attempted to book online, for some reason the accessible room wasn't aviailable to book online so called the Hotel, to be given an increased prince, so again contacted the other members and then called again to confirm the increased price was acceptalbe, only to be told the price had increased again! When querying this she was told that 'if you travelled you would understand'. Suprised I called the Manager to explain the above, who confirmed that this is indeed the method they use., compaing it to sourcing an airline. I told her we would not be staying as we had secured a booking at The Crow Wood Hotel, with no problems. I can only say how pleased I am that we did so as the Crow Wood was perfect. Also what I didn't realise until driving past the Fence Gate is that the rooms are down the road from the Hotel. This would have presented problems for the wheelchair user.

Amazing hotel. And what a helpful receptionist. A great credit to the hotel. Room was excellent and extremely clean. No noise at night which is a bonus. The only thing i can think of is maybe put some of the pods in the room for the coffee machine. Apart from that 5 stars to the member of staff on reception and 5 stars for the cleaners of the room