The Swan Inn - Hotel and Bar — Restaurant in England

Well yesterday evening we thought it would be nice to meet out friends in the Swan Inn for a drink and watch the football. We parked in the establishments car park approx 1850 and seen that the village had erected a pop up ice rink close by and went to have a look.

At this point the manager of the pub shouted across the car park that we could not park where we had if not using the venue, a reasonable request. I explained that we were just having a look at the ice rink and would be meeting out friends inside before kick off at 1900. As we walked towards the ice rink He shouted again that he was annoyed at people using the car park and not his establishment.

I thought at this point it might be a good idea to diffuse the situation, approached him shook his hand and introduced myself and explained we had met before when he had been just as rude as he was now but we fully intended to use his establishment for the next few hours but was just going to have a quick look at the ice rink.

At this point he threatened to smash my windscreen if I didn’t move the car. I advised him against this and as he picked up a nearby empty beer keg and approached me aggressively, I took out my mobile phone to record the incident. On seeing my phone he became even more aggressive punched me in the chest and snatched my phone from my hand throwing it as hard as he could into an adjoining property. I asked my wife to immediately call the police and withdrew to a safe distance.

I entered the establishment to inform our friends we would now probably not be joining them at took the opportunity to inform the manager, some one I knew to be an ex serviceman as I am myself that this was not the behaviour I would expect from someone who served his country. He asked me to leave, obviously!!! Which i did peacefully.

Sturminster Newton is a small and quite community with many friendly and quality places to eat and drink(and watch football) the swan inn is NOT one of them.

In response to the below statement.

I’m not sure how you should react to people using your car park”illegally “ which we were not, we intended to use the venue. I do suggest you probably should not threaten them with violence, strike them or steal their property with criminal damage intent.

But that’s just my opinion……… oh...

We were appalled at the way we were treated at the Swan Inn, our first visit was lovely, Geoff was a very good host and knew that we recently reconnected with an elderly family member who lives locally and that we would be regular visitors to the Swan (every 6 weeks or so) we spent a lot of money as we like to have breakfast and evening meal there and also the bar.||||||Upon this second visit, we arrived at about 3.30pm we were greeted by Phore who did nothing short of bully us into paying straight away for our room, just as we had paid, she promptly told us that they had no chef and could we please hurry up booking breakfast for the following morning  as the bar is closing in a minute. We had travelled a long way and this was NOT the attitude and impolite words we wanted to hear. Phore wouldn't stop complaining about her boss to other guests in the bar and we felt quite ill at ease.||||||The next morning we had to cut our stay short as we had to return home for an emergency. My husband went to tell reception in hope we may get some sort of refund for the second night as we were in fact duped into thinking they had a chef and all the other things we had liked about our first stay. But to no avail, not a good will gesture, nothing!!!!! We spent a lot of money and would have spent regular amounts when we visit my Aunt. ||||||My husband tried to ring Geoff a couple of times as we think he knew nothing of what had happened and how we were treated as soon as we set foot in his door.||||||You do NOT treat regular visitors like this and you should warn people that the bar and the chef were not available before they pay for their stay!!!||||||Disgusting way to run...

We were appalled at the way we were treated at the Swan Inn, our first visit was lovely, Geoff was a very good host and knew that we recently reconnected with an elderly family member who lives locally and that we would be regular visitors to the Swan (every 6 weeks or so) we spent a lot of money as we like to have breakfast and evening meal there and also the bar.||||||Upon this second visit, we arrived at about 3.30pm we were greeted by Phore who did nothing short of bully us into paying straight away for our room, just as we had paid, she promptly told us that they had no chef and could we please hurry up booking breakfast for the following morning  as the bar is closing in a minute. We had travelled a long way and this was NOT the attitude and impolite words we wanted to hear. Phore wouldn't stop complaining about her boss to other guests in the bar and we felt quite ill at ease.||||||The next morning we had to cut our stay short as we had to return home for an emergency. My husband went to tell reception in hope we may get some sort of refund for the second night as we were in fact duped into thinking they had a chef and all the other things we had liked about our first stay. But to no avail, not a good will gesture, nothing!!!!! We spent a lot of money and would have spent regular amounts when we visit my Aunt. ||||||My husband tried to ring Geoff a couple of times as we think he knew nothing of what had happened and how we were treated as soon as we set foot in his door.||||||You do NOT treat regular visitors like this and you should warn people that the bar and the chef were not available before they pay for their stay!!!||||||Disgusting way to run...