The Saracens Head, Great Dunmow

 

Great Dunmow - The Saracens Head Hotel

High Street, Great Dunmow, Essex CM6 1AG

March 2022

 

Great Dunmow is a lovely little town. The High Street features a number of independent shops and restaurants, all perhaps a little pricier than some might expect, housed within old, undoubtedly listed, buildings, some dating from perhaps the sixteenth century. It's a few miles from Stansted Airport, which may be why the Saracens Head is such a nice place to stay.

Its rooms are not expensive; we paid £79 for a double, including breakfast. That’s cheaper than many Premier Inns. But, unlike a couple of other budget hotels in which we’ve stayed recently, it is a place I would be happy to go back to.

Set within the structure of an old coaching inn, the Saracens Head combines a bar, cafe, restaurant and hotel, seemingly very successfully. In these just post-covid times, it was, on the Thursday night we visited, busy. (At breakfast there must have been a dozen other guests eating when we were there, around 8am; perhaps not all of their 31 rooms were occupied, but it was good to see a hospitality business doing a reasonable trade.)

***

Our room was in a block separate to the main hotel, perhaps built around 40 years ago. Construction was possibly not perfect - our window did not shut totally - but for our purposes it was fine. Indeed, the room was quite spacious, featuring a king size bed, and enough space around it not only for a bit of yoga exercises by guests but also for cleaners to get in there with the vacuum cleaner and make sure the place was properly serviced - which, generally, it was. The only cleaning failing I could find was the space between the secondary glazing and the window, someone needs to update the cleaning procedures to ensure the cleaners wave the vacuum in there to remove any dead spiders or errant dust particles. 

The ensuite bathroom was, unlike the room, compact; it was not a room in which one person could shave at the basin and another get in and out of the over-bath shower. But it was clean, recently refitted with good over-basin lighting (yay, I could see to shave!), a heated towel rail, and a grab rail to hang on to when getting in or out when using either the bath or the shower.

The shower worked well, although there was no thermostatic controller - it was a case of matching hot and cold taps to get the water ‘just right’. Water pressure at the basin left something to be desired, but it didn’t significantly lengthen the time needed to brush teeth or fill the basin to wash.

The room featured a radiator for heating, which worked well some of the time. It may be that the boiler was on some kind of timer, late in the evening we thought we needed a bit of heat and couldn’t get any, but the quality duvet kept the cold out. The TV worked well, offering normal Freeview channels, once we managed to switch it on - another point for the cleaners’ checklist (leave TV’s on standby ready for guests who won’t know how to switch them on!).

In-room tea and coffee options provided for more than our needs, and were more than adequate for the price we paid, and we even had complimentary biscuits. The in-room information folder was helpful but would have benefitted from TV operating instructions (where is the on switch?) and a menu for the restaurant.

The Saracens Head restaurant seemed to be very popular for diners; we did not eat there (we went to a lovely wine bar just along the road) but, if you are seeking a quality evening meal, it would seem to be a good place to go - one of many in the High Street. Breakfast was a generally well-organised affair, with a number of hot options (including smashed avocado on toasted muffin) swiftly delivered. Cereal options were somewhat limited (no porridge or weetabix), likewise fruit (only fresh apples - for which the supplied knives were barely suited), and  tea and coffee was from vacuum flasks at the buffet table, and, on our visit, could have been rather warmer.

After a number of disappointments at budget (and less-budget) hotels since the start of Covid it was refreshing to go somewhere that the staff seemed to, generally, know what customers are looking for. For the price we paid it was excellent value. Great Dunmow isn’t exactly a place that a lot of people go, or that we are likely to go to again soon (my previous visit there, to the Saracens Head - just the bar - was over forty years ago), but we’d be very happy to stay there again should the need for accommodation in the area arise. 

***

The proprietors of other hotels offering B&B for something like £80 per night - or room only for £60 - should visit the Saracens Head to see what their guests should be able to expect. I hope the Saracens Head continues to do well. 

The Gainsborough House Hotel, Kidderminster

 

Kidderminster - The Gainsborough House Hotel

Bewdley Hill, Kidderminster DY11 6BS

February  2022

 

I can’t remember how many times I’ve been to Kidderminster. My father and stepmother moved there nearly thirty years ago; he died in 2006, she last year. I’ve an inkling as to why they chose it as a place to retire; it's not everyone's idea of an ideal location to live out one’s final years, and I have to say I don’t find the town has much to offer, but I’m an executor of my stepmother's estate, so have to travel down there every few weeks at the moment, and took my partner with me. 

The closest hotel to the family property has always been the Gainsborough, on Bewdley Hill. I’ve stayed there before, three or four times perhaps, most recently though over ten years ago; it used to be such a welcoming place, with a good restaurant, weddings every weekend, and even what I could describe as a sexy atmosphere - down to the flirtatious and divorced aunt-of-the-bride in the bar who’s up for some fun with a man staying on his own. More recently, the more modern Premier Inn has been our choice in the town, but we thought we’d try the Gainsborough again for a recent visit. Following it, though, we’ll probably revert to the Premier Inn next time.

***

The hotel’s website warned that evening meals were not available at the time of our visit, but seemed to imply that breakfast was. Knowing the area a bit I wasn’t too worried about having to go out to find supper (even a bus or taxi over to Bewdley to go to ‘Spoons was an option) but breakfast was a selling point - we didn’t want to spend ages looking for food in the morning when we could be sorting out the business to be attended to.

We arrived bang on the time I’d suggested when I booked. The place was quiet. Very quiet, it had all the atmosphere of an undertaker’s in an empty town. It used to be busy, with a pleasant aroma emanating from the restaurant, and the function room and bar busy. None seemed to be in use now. Reception was manned seemingly by the only member of staff on duty - a middle aged suited man. I gave him our details and the formalities were performed. ‘We haven’t booked breakfast, we’d like it tomorrow please’, I asked. 

‘We don’t do breakfast’, came the reply. I was then handed a list of places where, apparently, we might be able to obtain dinner or breakfast. 

‘Not much of a hotel’, I thought. 

We made our way to our room, around the rather curious gloomy corridors that result from the way the hotel was extended perhaps forty years ago. Redecoration and better lighting would improve it significantly.  Breakfast, we decided, wouldn’t be too much of a problem; there's a Tesco mini-mart next door, at the Esso petrol station, and we opted to get instant porridge, juice and croissants there, which would fit the bill nicely. 

For what we were paying - £150 for two nights - the room was OK. The decor was unchanged (apart from fading somewhat) from the time I stayed there fifteen years ago. Faded indeed describes it well, the room we had wouldn’t be the place to take a prospective partner for a much-anticipated night of romance and passion. The atmosphere was decidedly cool, the heating having not been on, and the lighting was more up to a drunken night with someone you’d rather forget than facilitating the savouring of every visual and sensual moment with the lover of your dreams.  The walls and paintwork were past their best, stains had developed on the grouting of the tiled floor and around the hinge in the ensuite, and much of the gloss paint in the ensuite was not the colour it was when applied, obviously many years ago. 

The room did have plenty of storage, a full length mirror, iron and ironing board, and heating controls for the aircon/fan heater - these, however, we couldn’t work out how to operate. (A radiator would have been my preference.)  Also, from the window, we enjoyed only a view of the back of a wall: we could just about see over it into the car park, if we tried. There was half of a door chain on to provide security; the other half would have been useful. 

The ensuite did have a shaver socket - something that was common in the nineties, but often now seems to be left out (perhaps for cost reasons?) in hotel room design. There was, however, only a tiny bar of soap to meet the needs of the two of us for two nights. Fortunately, Tesco next door sold soap. There were only two towels for us; normally I’d expect a hand towel and bath towel each. Also lacking in the ensuite was any significant form of heating - it was February, after all, and a hook on which you might hang whatever clothing you needed to put to one side while you did whatever you had entered the ensuite to do. The thermostatic cartridge in the shower tap was obviously well past its best, not only was it barely possible to get a constant temperature from it, but also at the stop point (supposed to be set to body temperature) it dispensed only cold water.

One thing I did like in the ensuite was the heated mirror: as things steamed up in there, an area of the mirror behind the basin remained clear. It was a shame that whoever had fitted it hadn’t sealed the mirror edges with nail varnish (or similar) to stop condensation there getting to the silvering; but then, the whole bathroom is well due for a refit anyway. 

***

In the evening we found a few problems with the room. The lighting was, as seems often to be the case, quite poor; there were only dim, and not enough, lights to properly see what you’re looking at. The flatscreen TV was in a curious position: wall mounted, about three feet up from the floor, opposite the end of the bed. ‘They must have penny pinched on the cable and trunking when they fitted it’, I decided. The TV did, however, have a good range of digital channels - certainly all of the freeview ones I tried - and they seemed to be on the correct channel numbers.   

Our overnight experience was so-so, perhaps as you might expect for the price. The air heating made the air very dry, as a result neither of us slept that well. Turning the heating off resulted in it becoming quite cold, the thin duvet not being up to keeping us warm on a cool February night.

I didn’t see or hear much sign of other guests staying at the Gainsborough - no muffled voices coming from the corridor, sounds of ecstasy from a neighbouring room, car movements outside, or sounds of doors being closed in the morning. I did hear sounds suggesting a lone occupant was in the next room on our first night, but none on the second. A lack of customer presence usually indicates a business isn’t meeting customer expectations; ‘maybe’, I thought, ‘I am not the only person to feel the way I do about the place’. 

Overall, this stay at the Gainsborough wasn’t an experience I shall look back on fondly. It was in a period when the world was still rather obsessed with Covid, so some issues - like the signs everywhere asking you to wear a mask (why - when there’s no one else around?) are excusable. But it badly needs an injection of money, energy, and ideas. 

***

Unsurprisingly, I’ve heard this hotel is up for sale. There are no doubt reasons for this - many customers may feel like me, that they’d much rather stay at the Premier Inn in town. The new owners will either need deep pockets to do a complete refurb, and some good publicity, or have plans to convert it - perhaps to a care home. I don’t believe there is sufficient demand for this sort of hotel as it is in this area for the business to generate a profit. It's not a place that I can recommend until something is done with it.

I still have fond memories of that night with the aunt of the bride many years ago, by the way.