Holbeck Ghyll Country House Hotel

This was our 5th stay at this hotel, but our first under the new management. Our welcome was excellent and staff attentive. We had very good rooms. There have been some structural and decorative changes since our last visit a few years ago. These have been done sympathetically without altering the country house hotel feel ,which we liked, too much. The food was very good indeed .the wine list was very good too, but I think less extensive than in the past. Service in the restaurant was generally good, however our wine was not poured either to taste first nor to top up, until a final top up when the wine was nearly finished. I did not complain, however there was a 10% service charge for the restaurant and bar bills, perhaps I should have said something. Our room was above the bar/restaurant and although not too loud, we could hear the music playing below us during the early hours of the morning and before breakfast, This was enough to disturb our sleep a little.Overall we had a very good stay. I think there has been a little drop in standards since our previous stays, however the previous standard was very high to start with. I would still recommend staying at this hotel which is still a favourite of ours. Perhaps the new management needs a little leeway intheir changes.

Hotel very reluctantly agreed to look after our bags on the day of check out (our train home was not until the evening). I subsequently found that my designer bag had been stained. I sent two emails to the hotel (including pictures of the stain) but have not heard back for two months. I've wasted money trying to get the stain out to no avail. There were also other issues regarding customer service as well. I made a complaint to the manger on the first day because the staff didn't know anything about the getting round the local area other than advising that we get around by taxi if we did not have a car. This cost a fortune so we ended up having to figure out the local transport on our own (frustrating as we were only there for two days). The manager did not ask for our name or room number so appeared to have little interest in this issue. Furthermore, the night we stayed at the hotel, there were drunken hotel goers using the communal areas and making noise into the night. When we pointed this out to the hotel, they said they would have been "delighted" to sort out the issue had we informed them on the night in question - either it was a poor choice of words or they were not really taking us seriously. I've stayed in hundreds of 4/5 star hotels (16 in 2017 so far) and do not think this hotel is up to the standard. The Lake District is a beautiful area and there seems to be plenty of hotels that offer better customer service and don't damage your belongings.

Amazing and beautiful location and building. The service was excellent and friendly and the dining was superb. We are coming back to spend more time there.

Lovely views. Service is too slow at dinnercthst we missed the desserts in 3 course meal. Couldn't wait anymore.

Lovely room number 21, have views of lake and fields. Breakfast was the best I've ever had EVER, excellent quality ingredients sourced locally,fantastic Main meal was good but we booked for 9pm,and was told to come down at 8:30 for canapés, was finally shown to table at 9:30 then had to order and wait till 10pm for first course finished our meal at 11:30pm. That was way too late for us. Suggest on arrival for canapés we should be shown the menu and order placed that way shown to our table for first course when it's arrive, that would save an hour plus and be a better experience for guests, most good restaurants do this.