Buddha Tea Barn — Restaurant in England

It seems a nice pub but I would avoid booking it out for events after we had quite a bad experience there earlier this year for my baby shower. One of the members of staff there was so rude & constantly on at me throughout the whole thing, the Buddha Barn ‘function room’ isn’t enclosed & is right within a walkway between the kitchen & other part of the pub where they are back & forth constantly so we were essentially just (through no fault of our own) in the way the entire time and very much made to feel like that. It was a baby shower so obviously wasn’t rowdy, but it was a reasonably sized group & I was made to feel on edge & responsible for any small inconvenience (such as confusion about one vegan afternoon tea which evidently wasn’t the end of the world). Any little thing I (heavily pregnant and not to do with me) was approached every time with a real condescending attitude, to the point where we literally had to ask her if there was an issue because it was bizarre. I should have got her name sadly I didn’t. We came away wondering why they advertise their space to hire for these occasions because we clearly weren’t wanted there, regardless of the amount of money we spent on all the afternoon...

Not the best experience of an afternoon tea. When we arrived the top area had obviously been booked out for a training session and they were watching a training video on a computer, it was too loud to hear ourselves chat, not a great ambience, however after about 20 mins the waitress did ask them to turn it down. The waitress was lovely she brought our teas and then our selection on the cake stand but failed to tell us what the sandwich fillings were or what each cake square was, and sad to say but the sandwiches were a huge let down. Cheap white and brown bread triangles with crusts on. Fillings were very boring, cheddar with brown pickle, plain egg mayo, plain Tuna and ham and tomato, so not many were eaten, but the cakes, WOW, the most lovely bite size pieces of heaven. Lemon drizzle, a chocolate fudge, a frangipan and what I think was a date and walnut and they were delicious but the piece de resistance was the lightest scone ever, it was large and with the jam and clotted cream made a superb end to the afternoon tea. Ps the gin bottle was their vase it held...

Booked the tea barn for a baby shower, it's a lovely venue very nicely decorated and the food was really tasty with plenty of it. Unfortunately the service was poor, found it stressful trying to book as it took so long for them to respond to my emails and when they did they'd ignore half my questions. Even had to phone just to ask for a response to my email and was basically told they were too busy to care about my event which was in 2 months time. Not great when you're spending a lot of money at a place. When we arrived there was no welcome from the host and tables were dirty but no one around to speak to - had to find a spray and cloth myself. Shame as it has huge potential to be very successful if they can only get staff who are actually invested in making...