The Devonshire Arms Hotel at Bolton Abbey

We had a wonderful three night stay here. The rooms are a good size and very comfortable. The food is well prepared and delicious and its number one asset is the quality of the staff who are all professional, friendly and helpful. Situated in beautiful countryside with great level walks to Bolton Priory or if you want you can get up onto the hills. The hotel has a clean and well run spa with treatments, pool, steam room and sauna. The thing that surprised us was that the hotel has activities each morning and we signed up for the tour of the estate with Jane. It was fantastic to spend time with somebody who knows so much about the local area, the estate and food heritage in the region. Highly recommend taking this tour when you visit.

From the moment we walked through the door we were made to feel like an imposition rather than guests at this hotel. Everything was just a bit hard and instead of having a luxury break we came away underwhelmed by the whole experience. The deluxe room that we booked was small and dated, the old built in furniture had been painted to give it a bit of life but the paint was all scratched and just looked uncared for. The room has since been rebranded as comfort which is a more fitting description. We had two meals, the tasting menu on the Saturday night in the garden room and a Sunday night meal in the brasserie. The tasting menu was lovely the pairing wine was a nice addition and overall we had a lovely evening. The conservatory is a nice setting and I would have been disappointed if we had been given a table in the middle area as it’s dark and lacks atmosphere. The experience in the brasserie was poor on the Sunday night. The kitchen closed at 7.30 so we were left having rushed our meal. Overall, it’s just too pretentious and therefore makes the experience just a bit too hard. There are lots of hotels that balance this well and guest leave feeling like they have had an individual experience. This just wasn’t the case at the Devonshire! On a positive note, yes the spa is small but the staff in this area were lovely.

Good steam room, pool is really a very large warm tub with pressure jets; nice treatment. Very nice staff Sab, Olivia, Alex and Libby. Didn't really understand the reason for the tents! Although the space was quite limited inside the building.