Buckland Tout Saints Hotel, Kingsbridge

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	great rooms, nice staff, fantastic food, lovely gardens
Disadvantages:	can be expensive and surrounding roads v . narrow

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

OVERVIEW:
I recently returned from a week long trip to Cornwall. To breakdown the amount of continuous driving that I would have to do we decided to stop overnight in Devon on the way back. The Buckland Tout Saints Hotel is situated in Goveton in the heart of the south Devon countryside, two miles from Kingsbridge. The hotel itself is a sixteenth century manor house, containing sixteen bedrooms. The original building is over 300 years old, but the hotel and rooms have been modernised several times and the décor is sensational. It is set in 4.5 acres of grounds and is said to be one of the top 200 hotels in Britain. We booked the hotel through lastminute.com and believed it to be a three star hotel, we were therefore very surprised upon arrival to have the main doors opened for us and our cases sent straight up to our room. The hotel is infact very posh indeed and extremely expensive, although we got a cheap deal - I'll talk more about this later.

ROOMS:
As already mentioned the hotel has sixteen rooms, all of which have been recently modernised to an exceptional standard. When we opened the door to our room we were very pleasantly surprised by what we saw before us, the room was huge, with a great double bed and trendy headboard. There was a plasma television, flexible reading lights either side of the bed, ample cupboard space, numerous mirrors and a lovely view of the hotel grounds and surrounding countryside. Perhaps the most extravagant feature was the stairs leading up to a bathroom which was newly furnished. The room also had free wireless internet.

DINING:
The food served at the hotel was very expensive, but of sensational standard (the restaurant is 2AA rosette rated). We had dinner at the hotel on the night we stayed which was thirty pounds per head for two courses, but it was delicious. We were given a complementary starter of butternut squash soup, followed by fillet of beef with potatoes and vegetables and a chocolate desert to finish. They also had a variety of drinks which you could choose from the menu, we opted for a bottle of dry white wine coasting about £20.00.
Breakfast was included in the price of the room. There were a selection of cereals and fruit juices on offer to start and a selection of breakfast options. These included a full English breakfast which we went for which was very nice, also available was a continental breakfast, scrambled eggs on toast and a couple of other things which I'm afraid I have forgotten.

STAFF:
The staff at the hotel were great, very helpful, polite and extremely knowledgeable about the local area and places of interest. The hotel receptionists and waiters in the dining room was particularly good and delivered a fantastic service.

GROUNDS:
The setting of the hotel could not have been better, so quiet and hidden from view. The hotel itself is surrounded by 4.5 acres of gardens, with lush lawns and beautiful flowers - there was even a helicopter landing pad on the front lawn! Whilst we were at the hotel the weather wasn't great but we did have a walk around the grounds because it felt almost rude not too; it was very relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable.
As well as the large gardens there is also a decent sized car park at the side of the hotel for guests.

PRICES:
We somehow managed to get a room at the hotel on lastminute.com for £75.00, we were therefore amazed when we arrived and saw in the brochure that rooms start from £140.00 per night! What a bargain! It was quite funny to think that the dinner we had that evening cost more than our hotel room.

MY VIEWS:
The hotel was sensational and was completely different from what we had expected after booking over the internet with little knowledge of the place at which we were to stay. If I could get a room at the hotel for a similar price again I would not hesitate to stay here again because it was a great place and would well recommend it everyone. Even if you did pay the full £140.00 per night I guarantee you would not be disappointed. The only negative thing that I would say is that given the size of the grounds owned by the hotel they could have incorporated a swimming pool, this would have really topped it off and made it more suitable to families.

Address: Buckland Tout Saints Hotel, Goveton, Kingsbridge, Devon, TQ7 2DS
(be aware that the roads surrounding the hotel are extremely small and narrow and it is quite hard to find)

Thanks for reading x