We booked this hotel through laterooms.com and managed to secure a substantial discount on the rack rate.

I checked out the hotels in the area using this site (of course!) and also tripadvisor.com which really made my mind up in booking the hotel.

We checked out the location of the hotel through Google Earth and so we decided to go ahead. We were going to come down to the Cotswolds with a classic car run to Bourton on the Water but due to the rain, this was cancelled so we decided to drive down in our Vauxhall instead.

The hotel is situated right on the main road, the old Fosse Way between Stow on the Wold and Bourton on the Water so excellently situated for exploring the Cotswolds.

The hotel is independantly owned. It was completely refurbished earlier in the year and does look fresh and modern. We stayed in the Coach House part which is a separate building from the main hotel and I believe this is a new building, not really a problem but the poor lady on reception took us to the room in the pouring rain! We couldn't understand why these rooms were not attached to the main hotel but probably to do with planning permission....?

We were offered help with our luggage and all the staff we encountered were very friendly snd pleasant. Due to the weather, we decided to have dinner at the hotel which has been awarded 2 AA rosettes for its food and has been complemented several times on tripadvisor for this fact. We did enjoy our meal here and the restaurant was quite full for a Sunday night. I had a chicken liver parfait for a starter which was one of the best I'd had and hubby had a celeriac and potato soup. I had an unusual choice for my main meal,(for me anyway!) a risotto of butternut squash, parmesan cheese and toasted pine nuts which was very,very good.Hubby had char grilled steak which was good. We shared a dessert of homemade ice cream which were very nice.I wouldn't say it was the best meal I'd ever had in the UK but it was very good for that style of food.

We then got a DVD from the hotel reception as most of the rooms have a DVD player for that purpose free of charge which was a very nice touch.

Our hotel room (36) was decorated in creams and was modern in style with a comfy brass bed, the room wasn't overly big but just right for a 1 night stay. The TV was quite small and we had to move it closer to the bed to watch the DVD but that was a minor point....the place looked clean. Our only disappointment was that we had problems with the showers! The bathroom was lovely and big with a separate shower with a fixed showerhead (which I don't like if you don't want to/need to wash your hair) and a bath with a shower attachment to it. The separate shower didn't work which we reported to reception when we checked out..and the shower/bath combo just leaked water everywhere! We had reported this earlier and the very nice lady on reception had sorted me out with a shower cap to use in the separate shower which didn't work!

Never mind, it wouldn't put us off staying here again...we enjoyed our short stay and hope to come back soon to explore the Cotswolds in better weather!