61 Durham

Lovely building. Room clean and comfortable, if compact. Dinner options very decent, reasonably priced. Staff generally pleasant and helpful (see below). Location quiet: it’s well outside Durham city. That didn’t matter to us. Overall a very pleasant stay overnight to break a longer journey.

The shower in our room - which looked to be very recently refurbished) was very compact and bijou. We’re not large people (understatement) but even we found it awkward to manoeuvre. And beware: this seems to be a common wedding venue - there was such a do when we stayed. What concerned us was the breakfast the following morning. This - unlike the menu promised in the room information - was buffet style indistinguishable from a Premier Inn (other than for poorer coffee) to cater for the large party. We paid before we realised this: fortunately the server negotiated with the chef to provide the a-la-carte breakfast items we believed we had paid for. It’s a bit sharp to offer a rather ordinary buffet breakfast for 45% more than a Premier Inn simply for convenience. Make sure you know what you are paying for!

A beautiful old building set in lovely grounds. The room was a cosy double so not massive as expected but still had all the amenities required. £4 a pint at the bar 5-8 was a great bonus.

Room was very warm with no way to control as the windows only lifted a few inches.

The peaceand quiet

The shower was too small to use properly.

Good location friendly staff. Good breakfast. Nice garden area but needed a bit of tlc. Plenty of parking.

Tired looking exterior and fixtures and fittings needed a repair internally. Bedroom carpet had more stains than pattern. But lovely new bathroom. Coffee was awful and maybe some local bakery bread. Some local footpath info would have been nice.