The Morritt Arms Hotel, Barnard Castle

Location

Located in Greta Bridge which is a couple of minutes drive from the A66, 9 miles west of Scotch Corner. Greta Bridge is a really pretty small village near to Barnard Castle it is also close to the Tees Valley and Yorkshire Dales.

Checking In

Check in was very easy we where shown the breakfast room which is also dining room at night and directed to our room. The young man who checked us in was smartly dressed, very polite and efficient he booked is in at 8.30p.m for our evening meal and he also offered to carry our bag to the room and asked us if we needed a morning paper or alarm call in the morning we declined the offer and made our own way to our room .

Our Room

We had booked a silver room but on checking in we where upgraded to a gold room our room was called Bridget. It was a large room with a very comfy Queen sized sleigh bed, flat screen T.V attached to wall, large dressing type table under T.V with menus and places to visit also a complimentary bottle of water, chaise lounge settee upholstered in pale green, 2 easy chairs also upholstered in pale green, a table and a wardrobe which contained ironing board and iron and extra bedding. Decorated in light green and cream throughout. Blackout blind to front of room in green, silver and cream with large flowers on. Cushions and accessories all matched this. The bed was very comfortable and the room was very quiet and although there where other guests staying in the hotel we did not hear them and had a sound nights sleep.

Our room was at the back of the hotel and had three large windows with a lovely view looking out on to the garden.

Tray with kettle, Moritt Arms mugs, selection of teas, coffees,hot chocolate, milk in small cartons and packets of biscuits (2 pack) supplies of these where replenished daily.

Bathroom

Sink with mirror over, bath with over showerand glass shower screen to side, and toilet all in white with gold fittings. Lots of lovely white fluffy towels and Molton Brown toiletries ( Naranji soap dispenser which smelled lovely very fruity and Energising Seashore seamoss bath/shower gel).

Rooms and bathrooms are cleaned and made up daily.

Breakfast

Choose from Buffet:

Cereals
Yogurts
Fresh fruit salad

Hubby had a cheese and ham croissant which was a large plain croissant with loads of cheese and ham in it. I had a full cooked breakfast eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage and black pudding, I really enjoyed this you could tell it was local farm produce the sausage was very meaty and tasty and the tomatoes and mushrooms where fresh not tinned. We both had toast with butter (jams and marmalade where available) and hubby had a cafeterie of coffee and I had a pot of tea.

Parking

The car park is at the front of the hotel there seemed to be plenty of spaces and it was safe and secure to park your car here.

Price

I booked by phone after checking out the Morritt Arms homepage which is:
http://www.themorritt.co.uk/ and finding they had a deal which had to be booked by phone which was £100 for a nights bed and breakfast with a £40 allowance towards your evening meal.

==Our Evening Meal==

Starters

For starters hubby had chef's home-made soup of the day which was creamy vegetable in and came with a bread roll. I had watercress & cotherstone tart with Yorkshire asparagus and new potato salad. I love asparagus so really enjoyed this starter, the tart was very delicately flavoured and light it melted in your mouth and the potato salad went really well with this starter.

Main Courses and Desserts

Hubby had Grilled chicken supreme and vegetable panache. Hubby really enjoyed this it was a nice breast of chicken however he was a bit disappointed it didn't come with a sauce so it was a bit dry he still managed to clear his plate though.
I had free range chicken & wild mushroom ballotine, parma ham ,rosti potato , carrot ,onion ,chorizo. The wild mushroom and parma ham where inside the chicken and it was served on a potato rosti with little pieces of chorizo around the plate I really enjoyed this the chorizo really went well with the chicken. To go with our meal we had a bottle of sauvignon blanc wine brought to our table in an ice bucket so the wine was nicely chilled. There was a nice choice of dessert's but on this occasion we could not manage one so we finished our meal with an espresso each.

Our waiter for the evening meal and breakfast the next morning was called Phil he was excellent, he was friendly, polite, efficient and even suggested a trip to a nearby waterfall High Force which was on our route for the next day and turned out to be spectacular and well worth a visit.

Dickens Bar

After our evening meal we went in the Dickens bar for a glass of red wine before bed it is called the Dickens bar because it has a Dickensian scene painted all round the walls painted by John Gilroy. We enjoyed our night cap and looking at the paintings.

Opinion Overall

A great place to stay if you are in the area.