Passford House Hotel, The New Forest

Last weekend we were invited to the New Forest to experience some days out (courtesy of Hampshire Top Attractions) and review the Passford House Hotel.  I love the New Forest, it’s such a wonderful part of the country, so we were keen to head down there to explore a little more.

 

I will write all about our days out over the next few days, but for this post I want to focus on the beautiful Passford House Hotel near Lymington.

 

 

Being near Lymington, the Passford House Hotel is close enough to enjoy what the local towns have to offer while being situated in a peaceful area.

 

The 16th Century house is quite breathtaking when you approach it for the first time. The house was formerly home to Lord and Lady Arthur Cecil, Queen Victoria’s private secretary. Fast-forward to November 1995 and Ian Hudleston became the proud owner.

 

 

Passford House Hotel is set is stunning country gardens to the front and back of the property, each with lots of different places to sit and enjoy the great outdoors.

 

The hotel has a traditional charm, the inside layout is quirky and the rooms are set off a rabbit warren of corridors. We were booked into a Family room which was on the second floor.

 

 

Our room was surprisingly large with a corridor leading to this substantial room, as you can see  it was big enough for a huge king size bed and the double sofa bed.

 

 

Even though the rooms are traditional, they are not too fussy in terms of their decor and everything was spotlessly clean. Something you always expect from a hotel, but don’t always get. There were some lovely details, the gorgeous toiletries and the fresh robes left for our use. You can even prebook a whole host of things to be in your room to welcome you.

 

 

The TV had a DVD player built in which is always great for us, especially when Baby is over-tired and just needs to chill out and watch something she knows.

 

 

Off the corridor was the bathroom and again no mod-cons here, but a clean functional bathroom, again with that old-fashioned charm.

 

 

My only slight negatives in the bathroom was that the shower was quite under powered and the towel rail wouldn’t heat up. When I queried the issue with the towel rail I was informed that the rails were on a different heating system and they would come on at some point. Unfortunately they didn’t come on in our room for our whole stay. The only thing we wanted to dry was our swimming costumes and when the staff heard this they promptly look all our kit for tumble drying before returning it back to us.

 

 

The main bed in the Family rooms are quite firm, which may or may not suit everyone. For me, it was way too hard and I had considerable back pain after the first night. However, this is not the hotels fault, just something to bear in mind if you are used to a softer mattress.

 

 

The lounge areas of the hotel were so stunning, I felt like we had stepped back in time and it made a lovely change from the more modern hotels we seem to go to a lot.  There were multiple different areas for relaxing, having dinner and there were even jigsaws and magazines for the guests’ entertainment in these areas.

 

 

We loved the quirky design touches inside and Baby was quite taken with the giant ducks!

 

 

Both mornings we had breakfast in the restaurant and the choice was excellent, everything you would expect and all served by super friendly staff. The is one thing that really stood our for me about Passford House Hotel and that is how friendly and customer focused the staff were. They took the time to talk to Baby and I get the feeling that nothing would have been too much trouble.

 

 

Baby found some yoghurts which she adored and now I have instructions to find the exact same yoghurts for her to have at home!

 

 

It was lovely to explore the grounds and luckily the sun shone for us. There was a small leisure centre housing a pool, sauna and fitness/games room. Both times we used the pool we had it all to ourselves, which was lovely.  The first- time we had Mr Hubby with us, so I asked reception if they could put the sauna on (you have to tell them 30 mins before you want to use it) and I had a cheeky ten minutes in there, while Mr Hubby entertained Baby.

 

 

Baby loved looking at all the gorgeous flowers, although we did have to tell her rather promptly not to try and pick them!

 

 

There was lots of space for her to run around, which I think is her current favourite activity!

 

 

On both of the nights we stayed we ordered Baby room-service as we find when she gets tired it is much easier just to be in our room, where she can relax and have her dinner. It also meant we could eat later on when she was in bed. The children’s menu was £7.95 for a main course, dessert and a drink, which considering the meals she received was a great price. The fish fingers, were made from proper fish and were more of a goujon, no cheap fish fingers here!

 

 

As I am on the Cambridge plan, the first night Mr Hubby went down stairs to eat dinner, which I believe was very nice and on the second night he ate in the room.

 

 

The hotel is very dog friendly and many guests brought their canine companions with them. On the second night a persistent barking dog caused us a little stress, I think it was in the room directly below us. When I called reception they were very apologetic and within a few minutes the noise had stopped.

 

 

Passford House Hotel wouldn’t be typically the sort of hotel I would be drawn to staying in. I am usually drawn to a more modern interior and our stay was not without hiccup. However, the charm of Passford House and the incredible customer service would make me only too happy to return and stay there again.

 

 

Disclosure: We received a complimentary stay at this hotel in return for our honest review.