The Joiners Arms

First, the Joiners Arms rates itself as 5 stars gastro pub & luxury inn…….it is not. 5 stars of anything in hospitality infers an exemplar in quality product, quality service and quality hospitality. It is not luxury and the bedrooms are not “boutique suites” as they claim. The Joiners Arms does not come close to 5 stars, luxury or boutique. Bedrooms lack TLC and would benefit from the owner/manager actually staying in some to see the issues guests experience; stained carpets, peeling paintwork, dusty, lack of surface space in the bedroom (only surface was fully taken up by a coffee maker, kettle and a wooden box of tea bags, coffee sachets, sugar etc), lack of surface/vanity space in the bathroom, no chair, tiny hanging space (which is too short to even hang a jacket in), only two hangers in a double room (!!), and hopeless bedside lighting. Service was friendly and enthusiastic from well meaning team members but why would you tell guests at breakfast that they cannot have a boiled egg because it’s not on the menu and if poached eggs are on the menu and smoked salmon is on the menu, why do you need to go and ask the chef if the poached egg and salmon combination can be served because that combination is not on the menu? Positives: good pub food at dinner and a good buffet breakfast offering, comfortable bed, good quality towels, friendly and helpful staff. In conclusion, the Joiners Arms has many faults that should be corrected by an attentive owner/manager, it is not a 5 star inn (it is more accurately 3.5 stars), has silly rules about what can be served at breakfast, bedrooms need a good clean and maintenance checks. All that is part mitigated by good food (the gastro pub food claim is accurate), and friendly, smiling and helpful staff. Unfortunately the Joiners Arms probably does not need to try too hard, as there is very, very limited choice of places to stay locally (AirBnB type places aside) so there is no competition. Finally, an establishment can do nothing if it has no car park and no parking is permitted within about 250m of the pub, but why would you not state this parking restriction on your website ??

I booked the Joiners Arms under the promise of 5* food and accomodation and felt missold. It was a very disappointing stay. We stayed as a family of 3 adults and two children in Castle View Cottage. The cottage is poorly decorated and presented. It feels like an old home that has been repurposed on a shoestring with income generation and not the customer in mind. The decor is rundown, it smelt stale and whilst (mainly) surface clean , its shabbiness in no way made me feel comfortable. The wheelie bins are outside the bedroom window and the place feels a bit eerie. The pub itself was warm and welcoming in appearance and the staff for the most part were polite and helpful. The service however was slow as there weren't enough experienced staff working and as the pressure rose naturally the service reduced even further . Our evening meal was ok for most of us but not great. Breakfast was also disappointing: coffee machine serving poor coffee, dirty coffee cups stacked by the machine, dry pastries and cooked breakfast that was also just ok. The cottage should be offered for what it is, a basic level accomodation at a matching price. Neither cottage or pub are high level but when it is sold as such you hope for more. The management need to accept the level of service they are providing is not 5* and either stop selling it as such or make significant changes. I have fed this back to the company before posting.

Disappointing to be honest. Food just average at best, for a “gastro pub”, service the same. Toilets filthy, lots of flies, as in the bar. Tables not clean as pine slat effect and without a hoover you will not get detritus out. An expensive mistake. Will not return.

We stayed in the Aln a wow on entry but needs some thought. It is a small eves room with sloping ceilings painted in dark colours, the only space to sit to do make up with a mirror is in a dark corner but the small surface contains tea/coffee tray, large kettle and pod machine! No room for anything else. One side of bed has no light control for room or the reading light..lighting in the dark room is poor. There is a freestanding bath in the room badly chipped with peeling enamel. On the plus side there is a large wet room style powerful shower in bathroom, but the black wc seat was chipped and flush needs attention. The breakfast was great. good range on buffet and hot food to order. Our experience at dinner ...great food but service could be better. The two tables either side arrived after but received food first and all thee tables had to ask for desert menus and coffee plus the bills as no staff came to assist! Main issue was parking, which is in the free village public car park, which was not a problem, we went into pub to ask where to.park off loaded bags and dragged two heavy bags into the pub to check in, only to be told the accommodation was next door in a separate building....surely the young guy who advised where to park could have advised us to check in first and then take bags straight to room !

Very disappointed with this hotel and very rude staff. We went for pre-wedding drinks and food with family and after waiting over twenty minutes to be served at the bar we gave up. They seemed extremely short-staffed but that was made worse by their rudeness. Completely ignored at the bar without so much as an apology for the delay. We needed an extra seat in the dining area but were told we couldn't borrow one from another empty table even though there were lots of empty tables at the time we visited. Eventually the waitress came to take our order but we were really put off by then and decided to cancel. Breakfast the next day was also hit and miss. We both had to ask for butter and plates as there was none at the self-service buffet area. Would not recommend.

My husband and I stayed here in "The Aln" for 2 nights in May. It was supposed to be 3 nights, but we were so disgusted with the state of the room that we checked out early and came home. The room is tiny, with sloping ceilings as it is in the eaves of the "Joiner's Den" next door to the main pub. My husband, who is 6' 1"tall, could only stand upright in the centre of the room, (which was of course occupied by the bed), or in the bathroom. The room was claustrophobically small, very dark with little natural light and extremely tired, dusty and grubby. There was dust on all the surfaces, the lights did not work properly and kept dimming themselves which was rather disconcerting. As there was only one small window and a tiny skylight , it would have been preferable if the room had been decorated in light colours, instead it was brown wood panelling or black emulsion in the area round the bath. In fact it was so dark in there that it was only on the second day that we noticed the badly chipped enamel bath had two inches of water in the bottom, obviously left by a previous occupant. This confirmed our overall impression of grubbiness, because if the room had been thoroughly cleaned whoever did it would have noticed the drainage problem with the bath. As a result, it had become unusable and a pointless waste of space. The single cupboard in the room was painted black inside, so again it was very difficult to see what was in there. In fact there was a general shortage of anywhere to hang clothes or put your things. There were some good points, the Wifi worked well, the bathroom,although tired and shabby had a lovely powerful, walk-in shower. Breakfasts were good, with none of the chaos other guests seem to have noted, but that may have been because we came down early, desperate to get out of the cramped room! We had dinner in the pub one night and the food was fine, but the service was chaotic and very poor. The young staff, who were friendly and cheerful, seemed to think you were invisible after they served the main course and kept wandering past avoiding eye contract which made getting coffee and the bill very tedious - good luck if you want to order pudding ! One other point to be aware of is that there is no on-site parking and hotel guests have to use the public car park about 200 yards up the road. In spite of making our concerns known to staff during our stay, we have had no contact so far from the hotel. All in all, I cannot recommend the Joiner's Arms as somewhere to stay.

Have stayed here few times before and been great but this time although room senna. Cove was very clean and bed was super comfy feel that carpet needs to be changed quite afew stains . evening meal was awful did complain and got a discount it was really busy so think kitchen staff were under pressure but staff were lovely . To top it all off some people next to us got up at 6.15 and went downstairs not even trying to keep they’re voices down so overall not a good stay

Booked for Sunday lunch and very happy with staff, pub and area, found the staff to be very attentive and friendly, pub seemed nice and clean, ordered 3 meat roasts and when they arrived I thought the portions were slightly small, how wrong could I be, filled up with a very tasty meal, if anything temperature could of been slightly higher, big downside for us was price of drinks, 1 x moretti and double vodka with mixer was £17.50 !!! Only ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for us

Super overnight stay, from the moment we arrived everyone was very friendly & helpful. Delicious evening meal- and breakfast Would highly recommend