The Old Inn — Restaurant in East Devon

Owners Paul and Jean are very helpful and welcoming

Room well appointed comfortable, plenty of draw and wardrobe space, with the usual hotel bits and bobs, kettle, hairdryer, iron, visitors to room 3 the ironing board is behind the wardrobe. The ensuite is fairly spacious, though being of a fairly large build I did find the shower cubicle a little snug. I had a good night's sleep, with little or no external noise. Which comes to the main negative point, of this stay, when I arrived at about 2pm I noticed a sign outside saying the Old Inn would be closed from after lunch Sunday through to evening on Tuesday (except for breakfast for overnight guests I later confirmed) thus scuppering my evening meal plans! This is significant as hawkchurch is in a catering wilderness, the nearest restaurants are 3 or 4 miles away and are of the expensive faffy food variety, more substantial fayre is further away in places like Lyme Regis and charmouth, on this note I would reccommend the Charmouth Fish Bar and Pizzeria, but that is the subject for another review, which brings me back to the external noise, the rooms are along oneside of the courtyard at the back of the Inn, where there are a selection of tables and chairs as well as this being the access to the car park at the rear, so there is the potential for noise during bar/restuarant opening hours especially during the summer months.

The other negative is that mobile reception here is poor to none (on ee and three it was intermittent, though three was better than ee.) The free WiFi was also fairly flakey at times, adequate for emails and basic browsing but not up to streaming and similar heavy duty uses. Not a significant problem to me but if you have device obsessed teenagers you may be in for a traumatic time!

The breakfast was excellent ,cooked to order, ( yes I went for the full English, one of my few travelling weaknesses.) Also on offer were a selection of cereals, toast, bread, cold meats, cheeses, fruit etc.

A word of warning if you use Sat Nav to get you here especially if approaching from the A303 and the east via Crewkerne, as i Did. once you get on to the B3165 stay on it until you reach wareham cross (sign posted before you turn off) before turning towards Hawkchurch, my sat nav took me a more direct route which consisted of very narrow, high banked windy roads with non-existant passing places, the Wareham road between Wareham cross and Hawkchurch is wide enough for two vehicules to pass without climbing up banks or diving into field entrances.

In conclusion overall I enjoyed my stay here and would reccommend it to others, and will stay here again, when attending courses at...

Booked a table, ended up in bar, not ideal since the owner hadn't written down our booking, so it came as a surprise to the bar tender/ waitress.

Once the bar began to fill up (nb our booking was for 6.30 pm) we asked to be moved as social distancing wasn't being adhered to, only available tables are outside.

Big note, online menu does not represent what's available, you're left with a limited menu at the bar so please don't kid your self that there's a big choice.

Childrens meal ok (chicken nuggets and beans) one main meal of chicken burger ok, other main meal pork loin (specials board) rather disappointing, absolutely masses of mash but very extremely odd texture, chef did make an effort though with a squirt of sauce around the plate.

Went to pay, pointed out we weren't happy, amazingly our booking was now in the bookings and suddenly they are a pub not a restaurant, silly me for reading the big sign outside.

If you want basic pub food then eat here, don't expect culinary masterpieces, if you want a restaurant then this isn't for you, its not even close, please don't waste your...

What We Liked (3 guests):

A wonderfully quiet and pleasant location in a lovely village.

Plenty of free parking available behind the pub.

The staff were very friendly and welcoming.

There are lots of great walking options nearby.

The double bed was very comfortable.

The excellent breakfast was included in the price.

Areas for Improvement:

The single bed was quite uncomfortable; you could clearly feel the mattress springs, which made for a poor night's sleep.

The shower had low water pressure.

It wasn’t advertised, however it's a small thing, but the Inn's owner could make a big impression on guests by providing body wash and shampoo. It would only cost a few pence but would make a...