Elmbank Hotel

when we arrived at the hotel i nearly died!!!!the windows were dirty and the net curtins were black!!there were weeds where flowers should have been and the grass was overgrown!!!!
After finally plucking courage to enter the building,we were given our room.it was basic but fairly clean,all linen was clean!!!
the breakfast was good and the waiter was brill,nothing was too much trouble for him!!!!overall the staff (apart from 1 receptionist)were polite.
The hotel was about a 20 minute stroll from the center,all downhill,a taxi back was around £4.50ish.
My advice to the hotel owners would be give the hotel some tlc....first impressions do count!!

A family crowd to celebrate an aged relative's eightieth. One of us spent several hours on the net finding this gem.
The Elmbank is a art nouveau gem - or at least the hallway is - and it lulls you in a torpor of expectation... You know how you think it's a great change from modern hotels which are bland, soulless and staffed by morons. Well, at least their rooms mean you can swing a cat have seen a decorator since Adolf Hitler gave up his day job.
Many of the things previous Elmbank reviewers have mentioned struck a chord. Some of the staff were just unpleasant or vacant. Checking in was arduous and they tell you to pay up in advance. The hotel was labyrinthine and peppered with notices that are laughably rude, ungrammatical and/or uncommunicative.
Our room was a medium to large cupboard with a staircase just inside the door. The joint was noisy - a wedding downstairs thankfully ended around midnight. But we were awakened by a corridor stomping crowd at 2AM the second night. The kitchens start tossing saucpans around at about five and both nights there was a strange electrical whine/hum for 20-30 minutes every hour or so that wakes you up again when it finally stops - just like you've suddenly gone stone deaf!
Never again.
PS Breakfast is a shambles - and don't eat the sausages, they cook them for less than a minute each!

A beautiful lobby but the rooms were in need of work.
The staff were rude and unable to deal with the general public with the exception of the night porter.
To get service in the bar was difficult as according to the staff they had no bar man and it was up to the guest to wander around the hotel looking for someone to serve them.
Once you found somebody they made out they were doing you a favour to serve you.
I and many other guests just went out to get a drink and something to eat.
As a person who works in a hotel and has done for the last 10 years, I feel it is a disgrace to the trade.

Awful.
The Hotel looks nice from the outside but we ended up in "The Lodge" next door. The room was big but smelled musty and the decor was Chintzy.
We had not hot water for the evening shower. I called reception and she told us "I had a shower before and it was fine" (how nice for her!). Didn't help us though.
Our friends stayed in the room next door. We found out (the next morning) that the door to their room wouldn't lock properly so it wasn't secured the evening we were out.
Rude staff, smelly, inadequate hot water systems, unsecured rooms. It's no wonder they make you pay on arrival. Even Basil Faulty would be disgusted with this hotel.
But seriously, I urge you to look elsewhere.