The Old Priory — Hotel in Northern Victoria Region

I would describe this place as a hostel, not a place for adults to willingly stay for pleasure. We took one look at the room and the facilities and decided to drive back to Melbourne rather than stay here.

The room we were given was tiny and airless with just beds and electrical plugs. The toilet and bathroom facilities were down the end of the hall. There's a handful of rather luxurious private bathrooms, but if other guests are using them you have to make do with stalls that stink of urinal cakes.

Down a couple of flights of stairs you will find a depressing TV room, communal kitchen, and dining area. For breakfast there are three Tupperware containers with a selection of muesli, rice bubbles and cornflakes, and a bottle of cows milk in the fridge.

Next to this is a large recreation room that has all the upholstered leather chairs you could dream of, plus a pingpong table with 20 bats and 1 ball. (I guess kids could run laps of the empty room once the ball invariably gets lost.)

The atmosphere is on the dim and depressing side of historic. If you want to recreate the oppressive feeling of being holed up in a dusty 19th century nunnery then this is the place for you.

The promotional photos are so different to the reality that we wondered if we had the wrong place. And I also blame Google for displaying mostly positive reviews. Such glowingly positive reviews could only be explained if they are submitted by friends or family of the owners - or perhaps if the reviewer had been released from a long stint in prison with only a jail cell for comparison.

We hated it and feel...

Booked two rooms for the family of 5 one with ensuite for us (parents) to avoid fumbling around at night we figured we could share with the kids in the non ensuite room. Were well on the way up to Beechworth when i go the call to say there had been a problem with the booking (not sure if it was booking.com or the venue) and that they didn't have an ensuite room but they found a double room for us not far from the shared bathroom and would refund the difference. Given the time of year and the lack of options in town we figured we had to continue and unhappily accept the change. Arrived and no reception just an envelope with the two keys which we found thanks to the help of another guest. Well to say we were given the short shift was an understatement, where were allocated room 6B and it wasn't really a room, in fact looking at the room map it was the balcony access corridor converted to a room, complete with hall light and fan switches. so not only did we loose the access to a ensuite but had to move in the tightest of spaces to get out of the room to access the corridor and therefore the bathrooms ( I wont mention the vomit in one of the bathrooms) . On close inspection it wasn't a lot bigger the than the rooms offered to the prisoners at Beechworth Goal. We did happen upon a hotel which offered motel accommodation and who had a room available but was told by The Old Priory that we'd have to pay for the rooms as we'd past the cancellation time. It is a lovely old building with many quirks just don't accept a...

Don’t believe the pictures that are advertising this property, it is in my book as a hostel, far from a motel or hotel, it needs a good clean, a nice waft of sewerage constantly that I believe was in the curtains and carpet, so cold and empty, very uninviting, dark, felt like you had to walk around in tiptoe, everything locked including fire escapes, gardens not kept as stated, no tv or radio that I saw in the whole place, the so called kitchen to be able to cook a meal was only 1 working fridge, 1 microwave, 2 toasters, breakfast is stale cereal and stale bread, guests to clean up after themselves which is fine, only everything was unclean, lucky I always bring a basket of cups, plates and cutlery on our holidays. The pictures on the internet are beautiful, it’s nothing like that. This place has so much history and is a beautiful building but has been let go and needs to be restored, I don’t know who took the photos but the rooms and place looks nothing like them, all the beautiful furniture and fittings in the pictures are no where to be seen, the only other guest we saw was just as bewildered as myself as to why is was like this, Not one grounds keeper or worker to be seen, until 9.30am while we where packing our stuff on to our car, a man out of nowhere asked my 12 year old son if he was ready to leave yet, did not speak to myself or my husband, he was left after talking to my son, we never saw him. The only upside is that is in a great location to walk to town. We stayed 31/12/24, left 1/1/25. Not a...