Northcote Manor

The accommodation provides a delightful breakfast, well-equipped rooms, and friendly staff. Guests enjoy spacious, cozy beds, clean facilities, and relaxing spa services.

This was our fifth visit to this beautiful country hotel. You cannot fault service and the food is fantastic. We had the gourmet meal on our first evening,I am still thinking about it and talking about it. Also we had the wine flight alongside,brilliant. Our second night we weren't expecting as good,but we were very pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the very warm pool and jacuzzi,superb. Thank you Northcote. We stayed in the Northcote suite.highly recommended.

We arrived at Northcote in the pouring rain, not the best start to our break. An ashtray filled with cigarette butts and rain water sat by the entrance steps and remained there until we left. As we had arrived early we sat in one of the lounges, a large room, full of character but very dated. The carpets as we noted in all areas grey with dirt. Not surprising as there are very few doormats. We were shown to our room, the Dragonfly suite, to get there we had to walk through the dining room and breakfast room. Then outside into a relatively newer building. The suite didn't quite live up to our expectations, dirty carpet, dim lighting and lack lustre. The patio doors opened onto a small area that needed a good sweep and clean. The dinning experience by all accounts is supposed to be the highlight, the room was pleasant, but I felt the plastic table decorations a let down. The gentlemen waiter was very professional but seemed to be doing everything, dashing from table to table. We started with an amuse bouch, vegetable soup, it was green with no hint of anything vegetable and bland. Next we had the starter of the day, guinea fowl sausage. A small piece of bland, burnt on the outside sausage was served up accompanied by some mushroom, spinach and sauce. Mains was beef, with a fondant potato, roscoff onion and spinach. The potato and onion both needed further cooking as they were still firm. The sauce non descript in flavour. Dessert was the best course, I had a very good creme brulee, my wife a chocolate fondant. We aired our disappointment to one of the waiting staff, and went to bed. Breakfast was served in a conservatory lacking any ambience, bare wood tables, scratched and smeared with cleaning products. Jars of cereal, which had been visible from the day before ( covered in Cling film) sat on a long table with a bowl of dry looking fruit salad. Big kilner jars of apricots, jam and possibly marmalade sat part open, everything looked unappealing. We wondered how long it had all been sitting in those jars. It was only the croissants that looked tasty. A young waiter came to take our order, we plumped for cheese and bacon filled croissants, which duly arrived, they also came with a side of lettuce, cucumber and tomato, a little odd for breakfast ! We decided to leave rather than stay another night, and explained how we felt to the manager. He accepted our comments, but kept saying that lots of people come back time and time again. And that the hotel had just had a AA inspection and passed. The hotel grounds could be lovely........but parts are overgrown, and weeds abound. A newish spa has just been built, we didn't sample the delights but it looked lovely. Shame they didn't invest a bit more on the hotel. Needless to say we won't be returning.