Description: Walton Hall is a four star hotel in a beautiful old stately home in Warwickshire. It’s handy for the northern Cotswolds and Stratford on Avon and is just south of Warwick. A sat nav or a good map is pretty essential as it’s rather off the beaten track. It has a long, private driveway that winds through farmlands and will torture your suspension with some truly shocking speed bumps and pot-hole ridden lay-bys.


The first important thing to know about Walton Hall is that there are actually two different hotels pretty much in the same place. They sit side by side sharing the 65 acre plot but they are not the same entity. Walton Hall is the beautiful old historic building and Walton Hotel is the modern red-brick place next door. Assuming that with my luck I’d probably booked the modern one, we pulled into the car park of Walton Hotel and learned with some relief that we were in the wrong place. We needed to leave this red-brick place behind and head back to the gorgeous old place in the other direction. Both Walton Hall and Walton Hotel are classified as 4-star hotels.

We parked in front of the hall and headed in to reception, taking note of the children’s rubber boots lined up inside and thinking that they were probably provided for guest children to use (or the Von Trappe Family were staying). The entrance area is fabulous with a grand staircase to one side, a large stone fireplace to the other and if you raise your eyes, a gorgeous gothic stone balcony all round.


I’d noticed there were signs for a wedding fair that would be held the next day so I commented to the receptionist that it was our wedding anniversary. The receptionist asked how long we’d been married, where got married and a few other things before handing us the room passes, taking a map and showing us where to go. The hotel has a total of just 56 guest rooms of which 37 are inside the old hall and 19 are out in the converted coach house. I had booked one of the standard rooms so we were in the Coach House. The Coach House and the main hall are not linked internally so you do have to walk round the outside the building to get between them.

Our first impression was that the room was enormous. The second impression was that the room was really pretty chilly because of the unseasonably cold weather and the fact that three of the four walls were external walls. There was no central heating, just a slim wall-mounted heater and we later worked out that the heating probably went off when the card key wasn’t activating the power supply to the room. It was just about warm by the following morning. It’s not too big a deal as I’m famously mean about turning on the heating at home and guests keep tapping the thermostat because they can’t believe it’s set so low, but for those who aren’t used to such arctic living conditions, it could be an issue.


The bed was large and very comfortable. Our double was wide enough to be two singles pushed together. A small desk held hotel information and a coffee and tea tray and had a leather, high-backed chair. The wardrobe was built in and contained a safe, a hairdryer, a bag stand and an ironing board with iron. There was a door onto a rooftop which might have been our own large balcony or more likely a handy fire escape. A chest of drawers sat in front of the wall-mounted flat screen TV and a coffee table and one armchair was placed before it. I would have appreciated a second armchair as the one from the desk wasn’t too comfortable.

The bathroom contained a bath with shower and screen, a well lit vanity area with an attractive white ceramic sink and there was – not surprisingly – a toilet. The towel rail was heated which I hoped might help keep the bathroom warm, but we were fighting sub-zero temperatures outside and it never reached anything close to cosy.
We decided to go for a quick stroll to look around the place before it got dark. As we headed out of the building we passed two staff carrying a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket. Tony quipped "Is that for us?" and then told them he was only joking. I wasn’t so sure as I’d spotted the envelope saying ‘Happy Anniversary’ which was perched on top. There were only two rooms accessed from our corridor and I had an embarrassing feeling that we were getting spoiled.


All thoughts of going for much of a walk were squashed by the horrible weather and we soon headed back to the room. When we got there, the champagne and ice bucket were waiting for us along with a box of chocolates and a card. Having only paid £88 for the room I was pretty gobsmacked that they’d done something quite so generous. They were not to know we had our own bottle of champagne in the cooler box we’d brought with us, but we certainly weren’t complaining. We contemplated a future plan of always telling hotels we’re having our anniversary regardless of when we go.


The hotel offers free wi-fi throughout although the signal is not terrifically strong and there’s a registration process to follow which took a bit of concentration. The television had a good selection of channels although I didn’t notice any movie channel facilities but I didn’t go looking either.

We heard absolutely no noise of any kind during the night and we both slept really well. To be honest, any bed that doesn’t come with three insistent cats doing the breakfast alarm call is likely to invoke a good night’s sleep.

Breakfast on a Sunday is served until 10 am so we headed over to the main building at about 9.30 am. The ‘greeter’ led us to one close to the breakfast buffet, took our orders for tea, coffee and toast and said someone would come with our order in a few minutes. The dining room is a spectacular place with giant glittering chandeliers and ornate plastered ceilings. This is a room with plenty of impact. However, the impact only goes so far and after a while, when I’d polished off a plate of fruit slices and was getting thirsty, I stopped a couple of the staff to ask if they could check on our coffee and tea and take our hot food orders. We’d been in the room for about 20 minutes and although it was busy, I’d expected the drinks to have arrived and someone to have show some kind of interest in our orders.


For those who like a full or partial English breakfast, there’s a long list to choose from. They also offer eggs Benedict, smoked haddock with a poached egg and there was something else that slips my mind now. I asked for the haddock but was told it had run out so I had to hastily switch to poached egg and mushrooms. Shortly after the waitress left us our coffee and tea arrived along with a rack of brown toast. My husband’s declaration that Eggs Benedict was ‘just a posh Egg McMuffin’ was delivered sufficiently under his breath to not be heard by those around us. My poached egg and mushrooms had me giggling. I’d expected a couple of eggs and a mound of mushrooms – what I got was a rather lonely looking egg and one and a half fried mushrooms.


We dropped off our card-keys and thanked the lady on reception for the champagne and chocs. She said they like to make things a bit special and she was glad we’d enjoyed them. We then headed outside to take a soggy walk in the rain. The grounds around the hotel are very impressive but after heavy rain the river was sludge brown and close to bursting its banks. There’s a pretty little church directly next to the hotel which I guess would have been the private chapel of the family back in the days when Walton Hall was a private residence.


I was impressed and I want to return. The champagne and chocs gesture really surprised and delighted me and the only downside – the cold room - would not be enough to stop me going back. This is an area of the country that we really like and whilst the weather was a total wash-out, I’d definitely plan to return in the summer when we could take advantage of the beautiful grounds. There’s a gym and pool as well as spa facilities which we didn’t use and didn’t want but may help to make this an even more special place for a special stay.
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