The Bridge Hotel, London

Now before I get to the details of this hotel I must say that I was grateful to have a bed for the night and not have to sleep on the floor of Euston Station on the 18th January.

=====Why was I staying in London=====

Having travelled down to the London office of the firm I work for for a meeting on the morning of Thursday 18th Jan I did have concerns re my travel arrangements and the weather forecast and was fully expecting ...
...this was not to be the case and emergency accommodation was called for.



====Finding the hotel====

The hotel itself is on Borough Road just off Borough High Street and about I would say 10 mins walk from Borough Station which is on the Northern Line if you are using the tube. For me I only had to get there the office which is located between Bank and Monument stations. Now having already discovered that ... more

Now before I get to the details of this hotel I must say that I was grateful to have a bed for the night and not have to sleep on the floor of Euston Station on the 18th January.

==Why was I staying in London

==

Having travelled down to the London office of the firm I work for for a meeting on the morning of Thursday 18th Jan I did have concerns re my travel arrangements and the weather forecast and was fully expecting delays but was not expecting things to get as bad as they did. Yes I was delayed arriving and was an hour later then anticipated and yes expected there to be a knock on effect with all other trains from Euston to Liverpool that day, but hey if I can get home I will but this was not to be the case and emergency accommodation was called for.

=Finding the hotel

=

The hotel itself is on Borough Road just off Borough High Street and about I would say 10 mins walk from Borough Station which is on the Northern Line if you are using the tube. For me I only had to get there the office which is located between Bank and Monument stations. Now having already discovered that the Northern Line was not running due to an unrelated incident (I was not having a good train day) and unable to flag a cab I decided that I would walk as did not look too far on the map. I would say that if you knew where you where going and did not keep stopping to check the names of roads then this walk could have easily been achieved in 30 mins or less, however, not being that familiar with the area it took me longer and there was some emergency shopping to be done on the way.

=The main entrance

=

What it has a main entrance. Now at first I actually walked right past the place as it is not obvious that the building is a hotel and most certainly not what I expected it to be, please bear in mind that all I had was an address and a tel no and no picture of the place and would say that this would have been really useful had I stopped to Google it before leaving the office. The actual entrance is on the side of the building and would say that it looks more of a side door used as convenience than a hotel entrance. To get in you have to ring the bell between 8am and 11pm after that there is a mobile telephone no on the door which to call for assistance - where am I, is this the right place?.

==Checking in

==

Is that what you call it - there is no reception desk, there is a very small pokey office which has just enough room for a table and 2 chairs and the receptionist (not sure whether this would be the correct way to describe the function performed at this establishment) takes you name, you pay up front in full and are issued with your receipt their and then.

Whilst this is happening you are left standing in only what could be described as a very narrow hallway, no wider than the width of a staircase of a house, no room for anyone to pass without both parties flattening themselves against the walls. I noticed that there as a staircase to the left through a narrow doorway and at the end of the small hall there was a sign (more like a paper note) on the wall saying restaurant - maybe it wasn't so bad after all.

=My Room

=

I was on the 1st floor - noted that there are no lifts in this building so would be a problem if you have difficulty with stairs.- and the room that had been booked was a single so was not expecting a large room, however, I was also not expecting a room as small as what this was. I would say, basing the guest mate measurements on the size of my box room at home that this was 9' x 7' and contained a bed, a fridge, fridge was at the end of the bed and fitted snugly up against the wall of the room with the top end of the bed against the other end of the room. On the opposite side of the room there was a small round table and a small bar stool that you could sit on. A small wall cupboard fitted next to the recess to the window space was what I would assume have been the wardrobe.

The bathroom was off the bedroom, with the door opening out into the bedroom for access. It contained a shower, small sink and a toilet and was very compact.

The floor in the room was laminate and there was a rug which matched the curtains and the bedding, the walls where all painted magnolia throughout, even the hallways, but I will say that it was very clean.

I would also like to add that there was tea and coffee making facilities in the room and a TV - mine had sound and no picture but not too bothered as I always take my portable DVD player and a good supply of films with on train journeys, so was OK there.

==Facilities in the hotel

=

In a word - none

There is no bar - the restaurant that formed the basis of the ground floor of the hotel had closed down last October according to the note in the window, no room service. You can ring the mobile telephone number in the night if you require anything and they will try and get it for you but I did not try this. On asking whether there was anywhere to get a drink they did offer to make me what I wanted and where extremely friendly and a lovely cup of China tea was produced, the receptionist was Chinese.

What was the former Chinese restaurant, Pizza and chicken where apparently available there also at some point in the past is now the room where breakfast is served - we will get to that later, but you can go and sit in there if you are waiting for a taxi.

There is another restaurant in the basement of the hotel and this is a Persian restaurant and there are leaflets around the hotel advertising this - I did not go there.

What did I do

=

Now fortunately I did happen to bump into another stranded train passenger who was also stranded and was checking into to the Bridge whilst I was trying to establish whether was possible to get a cab to meet a couple of other people from my office who where also staying in London but a couple of miles away (no chance of getting a cab for over 2 hours again because of the weather) and the two of us decided that we would go and find a pub serving food and spent the evening in a lovely pub just up the road from the hotel called the Ship, which is a Fullers pub.

=At night in the hotel

=

Now I discovered the quality of sound proofing between rooms and the hallways - there is none, not much sleep as there was a lot of door slamming, TV's blaring and just when I was dropping off to sleep a party started up over the road - there seemed to be student accommodations there and boy was it nosy even with the windows shut. Again in the morning from 5.30am onwards, lots of door slamming as other residents started to move around but there was no way I was getting up at that time, remained firmly under the duvet as breakfast was only served between 8am and 10am.

=Breakfast

What was the choice that was on offer, well it was fairly basic but there was a choice of cereal - single serving boxes laid out on the table for you to help yourself to, Fruit juice a couple of different ones where available when I stayed, orange, grape or mango and grape, I opted for the mango and grape that was very nice. Upon entering the breakfast room (formerly the Chinese restaurant) you are asked if you want tea or coffee, toast and scrambled eggs, I had coffee, toast and the scrambled eggs as at that point I was still unsure as to whether any trains would be running or not that morning. Both the coffee and toast where brought over to the table you had selected and the coffee was in a tea pot and the lid was badly chipped. There was also a lot of tables that had not been cleared and where left with dirty plates and uneaten food on them and whilst I was there none of them where cleared away. The scrambled eggs came over, well I would say more like a plain egg omelette as in no way where they light and fully scrambled eggs and was swimming in grease - not very appealing I can tell you, I did have a small taste to see what they where like and where edible but I did not continue just in case. You had to get you own mug, butter, jam or marmalade from the same table that the cereal was laid out on along with any cutlery you needed. The choice of jam was cherry or blackcurrant and they all came in pre packed portions ready for you to use.

The coffee was nice and strong and I did spot that they used Nescafe.

Now there was no bacon, sausage, beans, tomatoes or anything that remotely resembled a Englist or even a Continental breakfast available so if you look this place up the info is not up to date as some sites say that they offer continental breafast

Would I stay there again

=

Not by choice if I was pre-booking a stay in London, there are plenty of other places that are reasonably priced that offer better services in London, however, if the same situation arose and I needed a last minute bed for the night and everywhere else was full the yes as it was clean, close to transport links and really not that bad for one night.

I will add that I had a sneaky peak at one of the double rooms and they where not much bigger than the single with the wardrobe actually placed behind the bed and I would say only opened about 10cms as the bed was in the way.

Price

What did I pay - don't know paid for by my Company but checking the website rooms start from about GBP65.00 per night.  

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