The Royal Hop Pole - J D Wetherspoon — Restaurant in Tewkesbury

I had been in Somerset with work so at the last minute I decided to book a night here on the way back to break up the journey and to do some sightseeing in the town. I booked directly through the Wetherspoons website which was quick and easy. At £63 for the night I thought it was great value. The hotel is easy to find and in a great location in the town centre, so just a short walk to all the main tourist sites.||I arrived on Friday evening at about 7 pm and the small car park at the back was full understandably, given the time of day and the fact it was warm and sunny. If you can find a space, residents can park for free if they provide their registration number Reception. I parked in the car park next door for convenience, which was free overnight but only £4 all day. I was able to pay on my phone in advance. ||The receptionist was very friendly and directed me to my room, number 207. I had booked a single room on the second floor. Note, that there are no lifts, and it’s quite a complicated route to the room, through 6 sets of doors and down lots of corridors. ||The room is spacious, with a bed and bedside table on the left, a large desk in front of you, a small wardrobe to the right, and a large bathroom with bathroom and shower to the right. I found the bed and pillows to be quite firm, how I like it, and I slept well.||There was only a small, relatively low, window, with a safety restrictor on so it didn’t open very far. With the sun beaming in when I arrived, this made the room very warm, over 25° (I always carry a thermometer with me). There was no view out of the window, other than roof tiles and ducts for air or similar. ||Fortunately, a fan was provided which was very useful. Although it was old, it worked well and wasn’t noisy. The room didn’t get below 23° at any point, unfortunately. ||Being a very old building, a lot of the floors are sloped and everything is quite quirky in general. The desk was quite spacious, but as always, the refreshments tray takes up quite a lot of room so that was moved to the floor so I had to work with my laptop. It would be useful to have a separate small table for this, or hide it on a shelf in the wardrobe. The desk also had a lamp which was a bonus.||There is free Wi-Fi, which was easy to connect to underworked well||The shower is powerful, but with separate taps, it took a little while to get the temperature comfortable. The toilet didn’t have a very powerful flush.||Despite there being a bar downstairs and a garden outside, it wasn’t noisy, though I can imagine it could be until 10-11 pm if you had one of the rooms overlooking the pub garden at the very rear. ||If I am in the area, I’d...

We come here for breakfast every few weeks. We like the Miners Benedict.|It's normally OK, food good, nice venue, but today was pretty dire.|For a start, the poached eggs were seriously overcooked. The yolks were solid. They couldn't have been more solid if they tried.|When the staff member asked if things were OK, I told her about this. She handled it in a polite and professional manner. She offered a replacement but we said no, because it was still edible and I was just highlighting it as feedback for the cook. (They were also a bit tight fisted with the hollandaise sauce.)|If it had just been these issues, I wouldn't even be giving this review, because things happen, it's no major issue.|However, I then found a hair in mine, and then found another one.|The first one was short, straight and fair, the second one was longer, dark and wavey.|When a staff member came to clear the table I told him about the dark one (didn't mention the light one because I dropped it and couldn't find it).|Now, you'd think the response would be 'sorry, I will look into it' wouldn't you, but no. He picked up the hair, looked at it and said 'we haven't even got anyone in the kitchen with hair like that'.|So, I got the impression he thought it was one of ours...my hair is very long and white, my daughters hair is short and dark and even if one of her hairs had fallen on the plate, how would it get under the poached egg?|Maybe he thought we had planted it? Why would we? We didn't even ask for a refund.|Hopefully it was just a bad day, but there seemed to be lots of staff on duty so no...

One of the best Wetherspoon pubs/hotels I've visited. And I've been to many... most of them in Wales and many in and around Gloucestershire/Worcestershire and Cornwall. So I've been about a bit, and know where the better properties are and which ones to avoid.

This is one of the best JDW pubs/hotels and remains a favourite of mine after my yearly visit tonight.

While they do close early every night due to licensing restrictions, so unlike most 'Spoons which close at midnight or 1am, it's always a great experience here even though they have a bizarre 11pm closing time. Blame the council for that.

The beer garden does it for me, every time. Probably the largest and most decorated 'Spoons beer garden I've been to. The views are great.

Free parking if you're a hotel guest, otherwise chargeable. You get a parking pass to display on your windscreen which allows you to park for the entire duration of your stay. Only staying a night? The parking pass allows you to park on the day of your arrival and all day the next day even after checking out. So that's really useful if you want to explore Tewkesbury Abbey etc. Just leave your car there. Everything in Tewkesbury is accessible by foot.

Highly recommend this place and I won't hesitate to come back. Like I said, I've been to plenty of Wetherspoon pubs and hotels - this really is one of their...