Hartlebury Castle — Attraction in Wychavon

An excellent property, full of fascinating experiences. The main feature being the Bishop's Palace home to Worcesters Bishop's for nearly 1,000 years. Although largely unfurnished, the Palace is full of informative panels & contemporary exhibits, overlaying the development of the property with national historic events & the specific Bishop's. A simple audio tour is a useful aid & there is a very well produced series of audio visuals in the main rooms. In the adjacent buildings is an excellent eclectic collection of historic artefacts from everyday life, from birth to death including very provocative early recordings from the jazz age of Betty Boop. A reproduction of a 1950s coffee bar with juke box, takes many of us back to our childhood. In the outdoor stable buildings is a fascinating collection of gypsy caravans, all beautifully renovated, showing off their individual carvings & decorations, with information panels about their previous owners. There is also an interesting collection of other vehicles, including a Victorian hearse, an ambulance, an array of wagons, people carriers & knife sharpening bike. You can get very close to each of the vehicles, seeing how they are constructed & fitted out. If your lucky, Mark, the onsire wheelwright will show you how the wheels are made. There is a pleasant, albeit short, walk around the remains of the moat & limited herbaceous garden beds. There are numerous activities for children The site has a cafe, offering hot & cold food, drinks & cakes, all very well presented & reasonably priced, the coffee was very decent. You can easily spend 4 + enjoyable hours here & most of the property is accessible for people with...

We visited the castle and cafe on a Saturday afternoon. There was plenty of parking available. The cafe had plenty of tables but was quite busy with afternoon tea bookings. There are lots of food options; breakfasts, toasties, baguettes, sandwiches and jacket potatoes. There are cakes and hot drinks and snacks such as crisps and cold drinks available to buy. Cannot consume own food inside the cafe, fair enough! It seems a popular place for cyclists to pass through.

The museum inside the castle was really surprisingly brilliant. It was really interesting. There's a laundry room with clothes for little ones to dress up in. There's a fantastic school room, absolutely brilliant. The main hall room is breathtaking. The chapel is beautiful. There are talking visuals in the rooms to help paint the picture of what life was like for the bishops and their families living in the castle.

There are little hidden rooms, a beautiful library, floor upon floor of rooms to discover and so much to see.

There are two lifts in the castle and so it's really accessible to take pushchairs / wheelchairs through.

It's not really busy with visitors so it's a really pleasant day out. You can easily take pictures without other visitors in the shot!!

It's a different experience to visiting a national...

This review is purely for the cafe on site and not the museum/castle itself. The museum/castle is an excellent place to visit however I wouldn't bother with the cafe. On arrival we were waiting for a table to become free and in the meantime asked one of the waitresses if they had a menu we could look at. She very rudely responded with "they are on the table and walked off!" There was no welcome or smiles at all. We ordered three meals. One of fish and chips, a ham, egg and chips and a children's boxed sandwich meal. The fish and chips were very poor. The fish was barely cooked and the size of a small mini fish from the local chippy. This was definitely not worth the 7.95 we paid. Next the ham and chips. The ham was rediculously thick, any thicker and you would think we had bought a side of pig. Presentation for both meals were poor with no real care and attention of how it was arranged on the plate. Lastly the children's meal. Everything was fine except for the tasteless cheese sandwich. The only good thing I can say about this visit was the man behind the counter who also did some waiting on. He was extremely friendly and helpful but unfortunately that is not enough to entice us back again. Definitely would not recommend the...