The Maytime Inn, Burford

...booked a 2-night stay at the Maytime Inn for Valentine's weekend, costing £80 per room per night, including breakfast. Tonight would have been the second night of our stay and we are back at home, having had to leave early because of the unbearable conditions.

Firstly I would mention the frosty reception from the landlord - he barely grunted at us on arrival, and we felt that we were putting him out, paying to stay at his hotel! More ...
...everywhere, which extended to inside the teacups, which I had to wash out before use. We went out to eat elsewhere last night so I really cannot comment on the restaurant. We went to bed at 11.30 and immediately noticed the prohibitive size of the bed, and that fact that springs were poking into us from every angle. We also noticed the severe drop in temperature - by midnight the room was absolutely freezing. I felt the radiators and they were completely ... more

My fiance and I booked a 2-night stay at the Maytime Inn for Valentine's weekend, costing £80 per room per night, including breakfast. Tonight would have been the second night of our stay and we are back at home, having had to leave early because of the unbearable conditions.

Firstly I would mention the frosty reception from the landlord - he barely grunted at us on arrival, and we felt that we were putting him out, paying to stay at his hotel! More on that later.

The room was very small, only just fitting a 3/4 size bed, which is not ideal for 2 people. It was also fairly dirty - there was a layer of dust everywhere, which extended to inside the teacups, which I had to wash out before use. We went out to eat elsewhere last night so I really cannot comment on the restaurant. We went to bed at 11.30 and immediately noticed the prohibitive size of the bed, and that fact that springs were poking into us from every angle. We also noticed the severe drop in temperature - by midnight the room was absolutely freezing. I felt the radiators and they were completely off. The room was so cold that we could see our breath. We had brought dressing gowns and an extra blanket with us, so we put our dressing gowns on, and put clothes between ourselves and the mattress so that we couldn't feel the springs. No joy. We did not get a wink of sleep all night. I put up the hood on my dressing gown and tried to keep my head under the covers to protect from the cold, but the room was THAT cold that my head physically ached from it.

The landlord had said that breakfast would be available from 6am, so at around 6.30 I was dressed and up, trying to get into the inn to check out. It was all locked up, nobody around. My fiance, meanwhile, was trying to run a bath in order to warm up. There was NO hot water. Not a drop. I don't mean that the water was lukewarm - it was freezing, like everything else in this godforsaken place.

At 7am, I told my fiance to leave, as we had travelled in separate cars, straight from work. At 7.30am, I noticed that there was some heat starting to come out of the radiators. At 8:05am, I finally heard someone moving about outside, so I went straight over to check out. The landlord finally acknowledged my presence after 5 minutes of kicking my heels in the lobby. The worst thing about this whole horrible experience is that I felt embarrassed about it - I hate to complain and have never before needed to, in any hotel. I told the landlord (what a very grumpy old man!) that we had to check out because we had not managed to sleep a wink in the very uncomfortable room. I told him it was freezing in there and he grunted at me, obviously having heard this before! Without apologising, he said, "Right, that'll be £79.95 then". I told him the bed was ridiculously uncomfortable, and he said he had never before had a complaint about the beds and that I must sleep in a very strange bed at home! Well, no, I sleep in a normal bed where my feet (I am only 5'2") do not stick out over the end, and where bedsprings are not constantly threatening to poke my eyes out. I don't know if it was lack of sleep, shock or embarrassment, but I handed over my card and got out of there as quickly as I could. Breakfast, which we had paid for, was not offered and you could not have paid me to stay a minute longer to eat it.

So that was how our Valentine's weekend was ruined by the Maytime Inn. We have not had a break in around 6 months and were really looking forward to this weekend, but we found ourselves back home by 10am on Saturday, snuggled in bed, trying to get warm and catch up on some of our lost sleep.

What I would say is that the pub part of the inn looked quite nice. The village itself also looked quite nice. I only saw both in twilight so cannot really comment further.

I really would never go within a country mile of this place again and cannot recommend it less. 

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