The Linden Stansted

The last time I stayed here, about 16 months ago, I scored the hotel 5/5. Wow. What a rapid fall from grace. We booked two nights, Sunday and Monday. Once again, the room was very good (room 4 this time). That’s where the good news ends. Service and facilities were truly awful. We ate elsewhere in the village on Sunday evening. When we got back, at about 9.15pm, everything was locked up and we used the night entrance. The lock is loose, so it took us a long time to work out the trick movement to get it to open. When we came down to breakfast the next morning, there was just one staff member around. This chap was really friendly and made our breakfast fine. But he was order taker, cook, waiter, clearer-up, and receptionist. He was also in much pain from severe gout in his knee. He told us he’d probably have to arrange cover and go home. We went off for the day on Monday, came back at about 6.15pm and found the main door locked up and the hotel in darkness. There was a note on the door to say they’d closed due to staff sickness and there was a phone number for anyone who needed to check in. The night door had been left open, so the place had been left unsecured. When we got to our room, it had not been made up or re-stocked with supplies. The place was deserted, and it felt very unsafe. We decided there and then to cut our stay short and return home to the Midlands. I texted the number on the door to this effect and said where we’d left the keys. At the time of writing this review, some 21 hours later, the message remains unread. Our stay bore all the hallmarks of a business whose owners had lost interest. Lo and behold, I just looked them up on Companies House and Liquidators were appointed to the business in January of this year. It seems quite dodgy that they’re still taking bookings and money, and providing a rubbish experience. I’ve just looked what I paid. It was £260 for 2 nights. But in looking this up, I discovered that I didn’t receive booking confirmation email and receipt. Just the webpage confirmation and an email reminder a couple of days before. Again, pretty dodgy practice that I will follow up with the Receivers. Such a shame. Based on my previous stay, this place would have been a goldmine if they’d marketed it properly..

We have used the Linden for previous work meetings and were mostly happy with the food and service so we thought we knew what to expect and we booked our work Christmas meal there. Unfortunately we didn’t read the recent reviews before booking. The venue is a nice building with one large dining room and a bar. The bedrooms are stunning and nice and clean. In the days before the event we were sent a slightly unusual menu and asked to send in our food choices. There were no starters or side dishes on this menu, just mains with a ‘bubble and squeak’ or mashed potato option and a choice of three desserts. After a telephone conversation with the venue we got some starters added and a ‘carrot and swede mash’ option was also added. The vegetarian options were poor. There were no ‘extras’ i.e. plates of vegetables put out on the tables either which would have been nice. I created a spreadsheet with full guest names and choices of food on and this was sent to the venue a few days before the event. There were 26 of us and we were seated on a long table and were the only ones dining I believe. There were two or three waitresses serving us who were really lovely and obviously doing their best but I would say that the place just wasn’t able to deal with such a large booking. It was clear that all was not going well from the beginning, the starters were brought out and given to the wrong people, they then had to be swapped around and given to the right people by which time some of them had started to go cold, the same thing happened with the mains and also the desserts, even though another menu list of everyones names and choices were given out to the staff again during this time to help them out. One of our guests was gluten free and as there were no gluten free options on the menu we were sent I requested one of the dessert choices on the menu to be gluten free. This was highlighted in red and quite clear, however I thought I’d better check during the meal if it was in fact going to be gluten free, only to be told that no it wasn’t so it seems that the guest would have been given the gluten choice without knowing but because I had checked they were offered something else as a replacement, it was a bit last minute though and I feel just lucky that the only choice they offered was acceptable. We weren’t offered drinks, we had to catch the servers attention separately and ask for ourselves throughout the meal. The food, if you were lucky enough to get it when it was hot, was quite nice though but if you didn’t like mashed potato you would have been hungry. One of our guests stayed in one of the lovely rooms and had paid for breakfast, they were told it was from 8 – 10am however when they came down in the morning at 9.30 there was no-one to be seen, the place was in darkness all doors were locked leading to the dining area, a cleaner tried calling someone but got no response so our guest and his girlfriend had to leave without having any food. I think