Squirrel Lodge is a bed and breakfast in Eskin Street, in Keswick. Keswick is a delightful town situated in the heart of the Lake District and is an ideal base for exploring the area for activities such as walking and cycling. The town itself has a good number of restaurants, pubs and shops.
The bed and breakfast is situated near to the town centre, just a few minutes walk away. It's easy to get to and the location of the bed and breakfast is very convenient. The biggest challenge can be finding car park spaces, but this is a problem for many of the establishments (and indeed locals) in the area, but we were able to find spaces not too far on each occasion.
We stayed for three nights during the off-peak season, and Squirrel Lodge was generally full, although still had vacancies on a couple of nights. There are a range of rooms, twin, family rooms and single rooms, but you would be advised to book early, especially
in the tourist season, as these can book up quickly.
The welcome when we arrived was pleasant and we were shown to the room, which was up a few flights of stairs. I would have been a little concerned about trying to navigate down them in a fire, and there were no obvious fire or safety instructions in the room.
The room was well decorated, felt clean and tidy, and had a small en-suite bathroom in the corner. This was all as expected, and there was a kettle with a good selection of drinks, good selection of towels and shower gels (although these were rather on the cheap side). The room was cleaned efficiently and neatly each day, and was always left tidy with all the consumables being refilled.
Squirrel Lodge offers a free wi-fi service, which was very convenient and one of the reasons for booking. We had to locate details for this ourselves, but it was easy to do so. Unfortunately for reasons unknown to the B&B, the Internet didn't work for most of the second day of our stay, which was also noticed by other guests. This was a disappointment, although the problem was listened to and the staff did check that it had been fixed.
Breakfasts were perfectly acceptable, with a choice of cereals (although these need to be better stocked as some ran out before other guests had had a chance to use them) and milk, a small selection of yoghurts and toast and jams.
There was then a choice between a meaty cooked breakfast, a fishy breakfast or the vegetarian breakfast. These were a good choice and porridge was offered as well, and we were asked for our drinks order promptly each morning, and offered tea and coffee, which arrived promptly.
The meaty breakfast was perfectly adequate, consisting of beans, mushrooms, two slices of bacon, one sausage and one egg. The food was of average quality, the sausage was cut off a larger sausage and could have been better.
Unfortunately there was a little lack of attention as one of our party didn't like beans, and asked for them to be taken off, which was noted by the member of staff, but unfortunately, the meal still arrived with beans. Not a major factor, but it is disappointing to have remnants of a food item which someone doesn't like still on their plate!
The staff and owners were always very polite and helpful, and although we didn't have many queries or problems, we felt that they would be helpful in resolving them if we did.
One of the biggest disappointments was their changing of the price between booking and paying the deposit, and when we actually got there. The room price varies from 25 pounds to 35 pounds a night per person, which is very reasonable. We were however quoted 25 pounds each as we were off-peak, but were charged 29 pounds each.
It wasn't a problem on this occasion to pay a little more for the room, but I have dropped the rating of what I would have given the guest house because of this. It seems fair to customers to be very clear about pricing, and don't advertise off-peak discounts and quote them on a room price, and then decide to charge the full price in any event.
We didn't complain about the matter as we didn't want to sour the stay, but it would put me off going again, and trying to get a few pounds more by over-charging on a previously agreed price is disappointing. I'm sure it was unintentional, but it could have been avoided. Clearer pricing on their web-site might also help them in this regard.
Overall, the stay was very reasonable, and I wouldn't suggest that anyone shouldn't stay here, as the accommodation was warm, friendly and the food was reasonable. The staff were helpful and we experienced no real problems with limited the enjoyability of the stay. However, from my experience, there are some other locations in Keswick which you might want to consider first.
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