The Wrea Head Hall Country House Hotel & Restaurant

BED

Beautiful location, Room 42 perfect and very friendly staff.

Nothing

The title above is an actual fact – I use a phone-based sleep app and my ‘stats’ at this hotel are the best I’ve had in years. A combination of a great mattress, duvet and pillows. A very quiet room, too. Utterly amazing. Wow. The room itself was one of the nicest we’ve stayed in…ever. And we’ve stayed in some good ones over the years. Beautiful. Saying that, the fact there was no blind in the bathroom is utterly ridiculous. It’s a ground floor room with a car park at the side with someone regularly coming and going from a maintenance hut at the back. The bath is right up to the window recess and lit by downlighters in the ceiling right above it. OK, the window has frosted glass, but that isn’t enough to feel comfortable in there I’m afraid. We arrived at this hotel having stayed ‘en route’ here in a Plus room of a national budget chain where the B&B cost would be less than a third of the cost here and where we had plentiful Baylis and Harding luxury toiletries, a fridge and a Nespresso coffee machine. So we were back to sachets, no fridge and small toiletries (including the one fluid ounce of shower gel between the two of us) at Wrea Head Hall. The main building itself is grand and beautiful. The grounds and views towards Scarborough are nice, too. The staff are lovely. Service was great. We had a drink in the bar, cream tea (aka a scone and a cuppa) in the conservatory plus dinner and then breakfast in the restaurant. The food was amazing. A kipper for breakfast, too – a rare treat. So, all very positive so far, then? I am not going to use the same words as a reviewer from July last year, but they definitely have a point. My mother (and my grandmother before her) have spent several years in a care home and unfortunately for us, we felt that Wrea Head Hall has a similar atmosphere and vibe, especially at dinner which was particularly dismal. One person’s version of tranquillity, serenity and peace is another person’s ‘zero ambience’. It is all a matter of opinion, of course. One night with food including four alcoholic drinks – over £360, so it would have been really nice if we’d enjoyed the whole experience here. We wanted to love it, we really did. Before the trip we had decided to book for one night here initially and see how it went and maybe check availability in the morning for the other two nights that we were going to be in the vicinity. After the depressing atmosphere of the public areas, we decided not to do that and ‘upped sticks’ and moved an hour or so up the road to another hotel in a Hall with good TripAdvisor reviews and a similar pricing structure. A lot of positives here, hence the 4* (good) TripAdvisor review.

Spectacular property & grounds

Breakfast was good variety of choices. Excellent quality

Nothing

Beautiful clean and stylish hotel - last minute find literally booked on the way up the coast. Staff very keen and attentive, met by Grace very helpful - lovely table service in the restaurant

We only had time to stop one night - will come back again

First time visit as it was a surprise for my wife’s Birthday. It was truly an amazing place and we were both blown away by everything. The location and grounds are amazing, the decor in the hotel is exquisitely done throughout creating a unique ambience and opulence in all area areas. The food was out of this world, sumptuous both in its presentation and taste and there was plenty of choice. The staff were truly amazing. There is a friendly and warm atmosphere throughout the venue which is brought to life by the professional, courteous and helpful personnel that provided us with such an amazing break away. We were so impressed we booked to stay on our wedding anniversary in May. Whilst everyone we met during the stay was superb a big shout out to Laura for all her help in arranging this surprise and Josh for his customer service and knowledge of venue providing us both with a great memory. 😃

We had sandwiches in the bar and they came with a ramekin of vegetable pickles which were absolutely delicious. I’d go back just for those, what a great touch! Huge portions too, triple decker sarnies. (Perhaps a vegan option would be good. )

Lovely grounds and peaceful setting