View from the Room: The Homestead, Melling
When is a luxury B&B anything but?
I always maintain a hotel has to be at least as good as home. However, I don’t want it to be like someone’s home.
Unless of course, you're staying at a hotel for purely practical reasons, business or at an airport hotel. Although I dislike travelling for business, if I absolutely have to stay in a hotel, I’d hope it will be at least Premier Inn-level comfortable.
In recent years, I recall staying in 3 other tiny owner-occupied B&Bs. Two were excellent, where the owner/managers were unseen and unheard and only popped up when needed. The other felt like I was staying at a distant Aunt’s house who was going to penalise me if I broke any of the trinkets that covered every surface in our large room and bill me extra if turned the inadequate heating on. This one, in a remote Lancashire village with nothing but a pub, was something in between. Actually, we didn’t explore the village, just assume it had a pub, we hurriedly got in our car and drove out of it every morning.
So back to the subject of luxury.
For me, luxury for sure includes having a private ensuite bathroom, rather than a ‘private’ bathroom that is next door. To access it, we have to step outside our room - just for 10 seconds - but that could be the moment the door for the other room opened or someone came up the stairs directly opposite our door. So yes, I had to dress fully before stepping out for the loo in the middle of the night. Had I known, I would have packed a light robe. Had I known I wouldn't have booked the room. Luckily, at the last minute, I packed some loungewear which definitely would not have been taken if I was travelling lightly by train rather than by car.
Yes, the bathroom was the size of a double bedroom and had a big luxury shower that remained unused by us plus one of those small, lovely-looking roll-top baths. I find them less comfortable than a regular tub although they are always lovely to have.
Luxury means being able to easily access the window/blinds and not have to lean right over the tub to access it. In the end, I just kept it closed - the room was freezing anyway.
Luxury means being able to walk around my own room and bathroom without worrying about noise. The noise of the door handles was enough. When I screamed in agony after pulling a muscle - like I said, it was freezing - we got a ticking off for making noise. Our neighbours apparently had a 6 am alarm call. (How did they know we didn’t?). Nothing was mentioned of this the next day, or was there any inquiry as to how I was. I was fine, thanks to having a tiny tube of pain reliever cream in our first aid bag.
Luxury means a place to store all my own toiletries without having to move breakable trinkets and decorations first. It was the same in the bedroom. We didn’t need all the big furniture in the room although I was pleased to see actual drawers alongside the wardrobe. The rest of the furniture was full of linens etc belonging to the B&B.
Luxury means having a lovely big soft, dry towel, or a means of drying it so I can use it every day. I deliberately left mine open across the towel rail as I’d dropped a corner in the bath, hoping it would dry by the evening. When I returned it was neatly folded again and the corner was still wet. [insert rolling eye emoji]
Luxury is having full-sized toiletries, which is also more environmentally friendly. We had shower gel, body lotion, (I used neither) handwash and a sanitiser gel in the bathroom. I moved the latter to the bedroom where it made more sense, so we could cleanse our hands without going to the bathroom next door. It got moved back to the bathroom the next day after housekeeping visited.
Luxury is being able to wear my own shoes. On entry, we were politely asked to remove our shoes. We obliged of course, this is someone’s home. Had I known, I would have bought my own slippers (they are still a novelty to me, I’ve only just started wearing and I love them!). Had I known, I wouldn’t have booked.
Luxury means having the assurance that the slippers we are given are clean. I do love seeing slippers (and robes - could have done with those here) in luxury hotels - that’s probably how I got into the habit. That and seeing all the elegant passengers on the ANA flight to Tokyo wear them (now that was luxury). However, these were just randomly handed to us rather than reassuring coming out of a bag. I’m pretty sure they weren’t even a pair. Ill-fitting slippers on hard floors are a little worrying, especially up and down two flights of stairs.
Luxury is having the assurance that our belongings are safe. We were asked to leave our (£90) shoes at the entrance. You know, the entrance, where every stranger came in, where there was a kitchen with cooking smells. I was so grateful to see my shoes there when we came back after dropping our cases - this shouldn't really be a consideration in a luxury stay - or any stay. Next time, we just took them off and then up to the room with us. This set-up may be fine for seemingly the regular walking boot crowd that stays here, but not so good for someone who dresses for the weather and changes shoes accordingly. And generally lets shoes breathe rather than wearing the same every day.
Luxury means being able to lock our door in a building full of unvetted strangers and leave for the day knowing all of our belongings were safe. There were no locks - only noisy stable door locks on the inside. I doubt we would have been able to claim any insurance if anything was stolen.
What I increasingly love about large hotels is the anonymity. No one knows us and we don’t need to talk to anyone - other than a cursory nod and smile when passing - unless I need something. For others, this will undoubtedly be a charming place, in a beautiful setting with homely service.
The owner seemed obsessed with their 5* rating so I’m not going to add this to Trippie, hence this isn’t a standard write-up where I make what I hope are helpful notes about facilities and conveniences - are there adequate power sockets, is there body lotion and do you need an engineering or physics* degree to operate the lights?
As it happens, there were two light switches, one for the overhead light, the other seemingly did nothing. I eventually found the wall plug that was attached to the main floor lamp. But I digress.
With hotels and the cost of holidays generally up about 40-50% in the last couple of years, it was tricky to find a hotel that gave us good value for a couple of nights. So we took a B&B just to get something for our traditional bank holiday trip. The rest of the weekend was wonderful, however, undeniably the anxiety of this luxury B&B impacted us. We are always sad to leave a hotel room. Not this time.
The good ones:
Cathedral 64 - sadly now closed
August 2022
