The Lawns Hotel

We spent three nights here in May and thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a large room on the first floor - very comfortable and well-equipped, the bathroom was spotless. If you're having breakfast at The Feathers it's a couple of minutes walk away, but we enjoyed the walk. Putting a fridge downstairs with fresh milk for guests is a nice touch. We had stayed here a few years ago when it was an independent hotel and were pleased to see it so nicely refurbished. Wouldn't hesitate to stay here again.

The Feathers is a pub, restaurant and hotel; the Lawn Rooms is an annex located about 5 minutes' walk away. We stayed in The Feathers for bed and breakfast and it was delightful. Or double room was a good size and nicely furnished with a comfortable bed, large TV and modern toilet/shower room. Breakfast was excellent - better than you'd get in any of the chains. We didn't interact much with the staff, but they were all cheerful and helpful. One thing to note is that this is an ancient building, or probably originally several buildings, so there are a lot of levels connected by steps and slopes: if you have mobility issues be sure to mention them when booking.

Holt is probably our favourite place to get away for a few days, we have been there so many times and stayed at different places. The last time we were there we had dinner at the feathers which was lovely, and we had heard that they had recently renovated the lawns rooms so we decided to stay here this time. Check in was straight forward, which is done at the feathers which is a 2 minute walk from the lawns. You are given 3 different keys, attached to the biggest key ring we have ever seen. It’s very impractical as it’s not something you can slip into your pocket and isn’t something you want to be carrying around with you, but it can be removed which is exactly what we did until checkout so didn’t cause any issues for us. Room The room was very spacious, and had free parking which was perfect, because if you know holt you know there isn’t many places with free parking. Unfortunately that’s where the good things end. We booked and paid for the “better room” thinking it was going to be the better of the bunch but there are alot of things that have been overlooked and need looking at to make this worth the money we paid. The shower, which is over a bathtub was horribly built. It has no thermostat to tell you how hot / cold the shower is going to be, the shower has a pane of glass which was covered in limescale and not big enough for the shower. It came just past the shower head, meaning any splash back from the shower is going all over the floor. Me & my partner found this out the hard way, when one of us had a shower and it started to flood the bathroom, which resulted in us having to take the shower head off and hand hold this to shower ourselves so it didn’t soak the floor or point it directly at the wall so it didn’t back splash out of the bath. We ended up having to use our towels to mop up all the water from the floor which wasn’t ideal. There is no trunking or organisation of the wires in the room. The tv had wires / extension leads dangling from the tv, which is really unsafe. There were also extension leads shoved behind the bedside tables wires coming out everywhere, again very messy and very unsafe. There was a roller blind that would roll down, but not back up again so this had to be done manually. Luckily my partner is quite tall otherwise we would have had to sit in the bad lighting for our stay. For a room that has been recently renovated we were very underwhelmed. Although there were tea/ coffee facilities and biscuits, with a coffee maker, there was no fridge meaning we had no milk to make a coffee/tea & the water that was provided was warm which wasn’t pleasant. Would have been nice to have a mini fridge to place our own milk/water in the fridge or if not at least have the little milk sachets provided. Food We had dinner the first night we arrived which we were looking forward too as the food we have had before was really good. Although our drinks order was taken within 10 minutes of being seated, our drinks didn’t

Refurbished beautifully, looks and smells fresh and new. Owned by the same people as the very plush The Feathers Inn so check-in and food and drinks are all there, which is 3 minutes round the corner. Friendly and efficient staff - Holly at the check-in desk gave us an excellent warm welcome. Our spacious room was beautiful and had the biggest bed I’ve ever slept in!

We were booked into the Lawns Rooms and due to the changes took breakfast at the Feathers Hotel. During this transitional period, there appear to be some issues which I am sure will be resolved once the Lawns is refurbished in due course in order to meet its 4 star level. So, there were good points and bad points regarding our stay. Lawns Rooms is very convenient for exploring Holt, with a good sized car park at the rear - a real bonus. Breakfast at the Feathers was excellent and we also ate there on two evenings enjoying both meals, with lovely service. The restaurant was busy, which was good, as there is nothing worse than eating in an empty restaurant! The room was clean, quite spacious with a nice view of the garden and the grounds of the school opposite. Lovely fluffy towels with plenty of toilet rolls and toiletries provided. There was a coffee machine, although we did not use it. However, the water for the shower which is situated over the bath can only be controlled by the bath taps whereas for safety this should have been a thermostatic shower - so you had to move the glass screen to turn the hot tap on and then the cold. The water was dangerously hot for anyone with young children or for someone who did not understand how to use it. My husband is a retired plumber and couldn't understand how this shower could have still been in use. Following the recent changes, rather than go through the lounge/bar area to the front door, we were told that the residents entrance is now located at the rear of the building, and there is a sign up on the back door. However, we didn't feel that this gives a very good impression, as the hallway is quite grubby looking, and the area outside leading to the car park is where the dustbins are kept and you could see cigarette ends on the ground. One afternoon, on returning to the building, we were very surprised to see a young man changing the tyres on a car just outside the back door and later that evening when we went out for dinner, a girl was sat in the back seat of the car with him. The one time we did use the front entrance, there were cigarette ends outside as well. We noticed that a gardener came one day to cut the grass, so hopefully he cleared these away. Regarding the staff, we found Vicky and everyone at The Feathers very friendly and helpful. However, whilst the cleaners at The Lawns were also friendly, we did feel that some staff at the Lawns were clearly lacking in customer services skills - no response whatsoever when we handed in our keys as would be expected, and strangely, there never seemed to be a manager around to oversee the staff. So if you want 4 star treatment, the Feathers is probably the better option at present - but the Lawn Rooms is nonetheless a nice place to stay offering a nice clean room and good car park, but its just no longer 4 star.

I recently stayed at this small hotel in Holt.The hotel is attractive and my room was lovely, very clean and large bathroom. The staff were very friendly. The lunch menu was limited and we were told it was because they only had a trainee chef. The breakfast was good on the first day but not so great on the second.We decided not to eat there in the evenings because of this. My main issue was the fact that at night there was no one staffing the hotel at all. I needed to speak to someone in the hotel at 11.30 pm.As there are no phones in the room I went downstairs and was surprised to find that all areas were locked up and nobody to be seen. The only area not locked was the outer door for fire escape. I then tried to phone the hotel from my mobile but it went to voicemail.There was no information on who to contact in an emergency in the room. I spoke to the staff about this the following morning and was told that they don’t have anyone available in the night. I went to bed feeling quite concerned. What if there was a fire ,intruders or medical emergency. You would be left to deal with it without any assistance.This is not what I would expect of a 4 star hotel.