The Cow Dalbury

There is so much to like here. We arrived late Saturday afternoon and there was a vibrant feel to the bar and restaurant. Good service as well, and I personally was pleased to see one of my favourite pints (Timothy Taylor Landlord) on draft. The evening meal was excellent, my wife choosing the vegetarian curry declaring it "the best ever". The room (no. 6) was comfortable and clean. So what is there not to like? Small gripes to begin with, we had to park some distance away and breakfast is not included even at these top end prices. The BIG GRIPE is room 6 is adjacent to the ducting for the kitchen fan and it is quite impossible to sleep when it is running. We had to ask for it to be turned off in the evening. Much worse, we were rudely awoken at 7.00am (6.00am according to our body clocks, the clocks has moved to BST that night) when the fan started up for the days service. We had very much looked forward to a well deserved lie in, but it was not to be. We have no idea if other room suffer in the same way, but it is impossible to believe the owners and management are not aware of this major issue. £220 for a bad nights sleep, well, I can't get my head around that. Sorry.

Stayed here the night of our wedding and the night before. Overall wouldn’t recommend staying here. The rooms themselves were lovely and perfectly equipped for a wedding, but some of the behaviour of the staff was odd to say the least and I didn’t think the service matched the price we had paid. There were a couple of noteworthy incidents which I set out below, but generally everyone commented that the staff seems a little bit off/grumpy. We had booked all but one room at the inn. They were clearly very stressed about the breakfast situation and asked each person as they arrived what time they would be having their breakfast (even after being told that the bride had made a plan for breakfast and would let them know when she arrived - they had already called earlier in the week asking that we stagger our breakfasts). They could only seat 4 at a time - not a huge deal but being from a medium sized family, 4 seemed a bit weak and overall it would have been nice to have been able to sit together. We were happy to stagger the breakfasts in groups of 4 and when they arrived they were good quality. We had booked an extra room on the first night with guests joining us the following day. We had pre agreed with the hotel that a groomsman who was getting ready with us the following day could have the breakfast attached to the room. However, later that morning (on our wedding day), they demanded payment and would not let us use the iron (again, on our wedding day), until they received payment for the breakfast. Ultimately we did not have to pay for the breakfast, but still strange behaviour, particularly given the amount it had costs to stay there for 2 nights.

Lovely little place hidden away from the hustle and bustle. We planned on taking a walk but in the end we didn't leave the hotel. Great food. Good wine list. Beautiful room and Molton Brown toiletries always impress me. I'm pretty sure we will be back.