We've seen the best bargain hotel in the UK, but what about the worst?

From blood-stained headboards to the hotel with a policy to give guests fines for bad reviews

(YouTube/BBC)

Following the news that Lawton Court Hotel, in Llandudno, Wales, has been named the world’s best bargain hotel, based on reviews, we thought it was time to look at the other end of the quality scale.

“Hotel California”, a 1970s hit by the Eagles, tells the story of a visit to a roadside guest lodge that ended badly. What seems like a “lovely place” from the highway turns out to be the stuff of nightmares. Here are some of the worst reviews for accommodation in the UK.

In Scotland, visitors were unimpressed with one hotel. “Like living in a cave”, said one reviewer. Another man thought that sleeping alfresco was better than actually staying in the building, claiming that he would “rather camp in the field”, and inviting potential visitors to “get your sleeping bag and head for the nearest bench”. A guest house did hardly any better. “Disgusting is all I can say”, wrote one reviewer. “Bogeys on the carpet”… “mould everywhere”… “a dirty stinking fire hazard”.

Across the border, a hotel in the North East attracted one of the finest reviews in history. It was here that a visitor complained of “blood-stained headboards that have clearly been up since the world war (the first one)”, “rude staff, windows that won’t close, no hot water, broken furniture, dirty utensils” and “broken light fittings”.

Unpleasant surprises were a common feature of bad reviews. A visitor to a hotel in the North West described reaching over to the bedside table, only to find “the previous guest’s fake eyelashes”. One reviewer from a guest house in the Midlands said: “I really only wanted somewhere to put my head down...but I didn’t expect to find cheese & onion pasties and a chocolate éclair left in the chest of drawers”.

One guest house in the South attracted particularly strange reviews. A visitor noted that a jar stayed on the stairs for the duration of his stay. “I would have picked it up”, he wrote, “but I was curious to see how long it would be there”. Another person admired the view of “an old toilet bowl in the yard”. The highest praise came in the form of the only review marked “very good”, which simply noted, “not as bad as the other reviews”.

Interiors in need of some refurbishment were a common complaint. A visitor to one hotel in Yorkshire described where they were staying as “an old fashioned boarding house”, with “holes in wardrobes, holes in walls [and] woodchip everywhere”. In Wales, one guest asked how the hotel owners could describe their building as recently refurbished, as there were “stains/marks on the walls”.

But some places receive so many bad reviews that they are happy to receive any feedback that isn’t entirely negative. A hotel in the Midlands attracted reviews such as “never again”, and “avoid like the plague”. Replying to a review entitled “Decent Hotel”, the management could barely contain their delight: “Thank you for submitting such a kind and honest review… we have recently refurbished and we are happy that our guests are now reaping the rewards”.

But owners do not always suck up to guests. The owners of a guest house in the North West, struck back against one review with the words, “FILTHY, DIRTY ROTTEN STINKING HOVEL RAN BY MUPPETS”. The visitor was given a £100 fine, as it was hotel policy to give fines for bad reviews. Yet he won in the end, as Trading Standards ordered the owner to give a full refund.