Worst Review Ever of The Swan!

[ChrisLewis]

In today society with Tripadvisor, twitter, facebook and forums we have so much information about hotels, restaurants and bars etc. To the extent that if you read every bad review the safest place is possibly a course at Stafford College and good food at home - oh the death knell of every pub and restaurant if ever that happened!

This year we have many fantastic things to celebrate/commemorate - Olympics, Queens Jubillee, BMX world cup in Birmingham, Centenary of the sinking of The Titanic.

But for The Swan, we celebrate Ten years of Lewis partnership ownership and the bicentenary of our worst ever review of the hotel....

Yes, 200 years ago Charles Dickens stayed at The Swan when the hotel – and Stafford – was virtually a ghost town. The railways had killed off the coaching inn trade.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...QP3u_jpDg&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

In fact he uses his rather sad description of the hotel as a framework for an article about Copeland potteries which he has just visited.

I unfortunately cant find any management response to his review of The Swan of the time.

 

[Gramaisc]

Sounds like it was hard times, back then.

 

[Gadget]

Dear me he really didn't enjoy his stay did he? lol I hope that you will of course, as a gesture of goodwill be offering him a free nights stay with dinner included? You never know he may be willing to return and take you up on it
G x

 

[Withnail]

You really ought to put a picture of a Dodo up somewhere inside. Some people are sure to get the reference.




Assuming you don't already, of course, which is a rather presumptuous assumption

 

[52.8N-2.1W]

Sounds like the same review that's referenced in a piece on the wall in Starbucks.

 

[citricsquid]

Maybe you could get some good publicity by offering Lucinda Hawksley a free meal and stay If she accepts... which seems as likely as you finding a member of management from the 1800s.

 

[Tinkerbell]

Yes, 200 years ago Charles Dickens stayed at The Swan .

And 17 years ago Mrs newly wed Tinkerbell and husband stayed in the Swan Hotel, after the wedding do at the Universal! good times.

We came back about 12.30 and had been locked out - me standing there at the door in my 4-hooped dress (it was fashionable then lol) and otherhalf little worse for wear !!

The receptionist nearly had a shock when she finally came round to the door and found us (she had already booked us in by mistake, because we had luggage dropped off earlier lol) but the staff looked after us very well.

Good times

 

[pollyannapatch]

What a fantastic account by Dickens. I love the old language...

Congratulations on your anniversary(?). Many's a time we call in for Sunday breakfast with the boys...

 

[Gramaisc]

Many's a time we call in for Sunday breakfast with the boys...

Sounds like you're running a protection racket...

 

[Withnail]

Muffins with menaces.

 

[staffordjas]

I like the reference to the stables at the back..............The Stable Bar was one of THE places to go in the 70's

 

[gon2seed]

Yes, 200 years ago Charles Dickens stayed at The Swan .

And 17 years ago Mrs newly wed Tinkerbell and husband stayed in the Swan Hotel, after the wedding do at the Universal! good times.

We came back about 12.30 and had been locked out - me standing there at the door in my 4-hooped dress (it was fashionable then lol) and otherhalf little worse for wear !!

The receptionist nearly had a shock when she finally came round to the door and found us (she had already booked us in by mistake, because we had luggage dropped off earlier lol) but the staff looked after us very well.

Good times

http://www.staffordforum.com/viewtopic.php?id=8730 22.12.11
Great Minds think alike, definitely the ONLY place to celebrate your nuptuals!

Re: The Swan Stafford "Not going to spoil the positive tone of this thread by with negativity:- I have had some great nights, particularly in the Beer Garden in summer, watching live performances; but my best night ever was my nuptuals! We had tried to keep our wedding expenditure within bounds, by having a post wedding do at the Universal Club, in Doxey (RIP! sadly now covered in houses! ). We had 150 people at the evening do, and people came from all over the Country. We had been together for 21 years, and have three sons, so I thought if we are having a party to celebrate that, it is unlikely so many folk would make the effort to come, where as if we said we were getting wed'.........We spent the night at The Swan, having a do*, in our garden, for family and close friends, the next day; before travelling to Prague for 5 days. *You might be imagining a mansion, with a garden to boot, but not at all, its an average semi, but has a long, but narrow garden, and we invited the neighbours both sides. My Uncle works for a Marquee company, and he designed and built one, that attaches to the back of our house, and he gave it to us as a wedding present. We had a very resonable local catereer, about 40 guests, and an absolutely fantastic time; (Get to ya reason for posting ya retard! Ed )but our night at the Swan was certainly unforgettable, and not just because I am a glutton, and the breakfast was particularly good, but it was! I have been lucky enough to eat at the Swan occaisionally since, and if I ever eat at the Post House I hope it can match up to the high standards the Swan has set!

The Venerable Mrs Seed gave me the details of a night & breakfast, at The Swan, that she had booked, on our last anniversary. Ahh! I thought, how romantic. It wasn't till a few days later, I realy read it, and realised it was The Swan, StRaTford! (I could extend the tale there by talking about lost post bags, and this seasons FA cup, but something tells meI have waffled too long already!)

Thinks 'Mmmm! Gives me a very good idea about this years anniversary! mmm!"

 

[loveatfirstbite]

i put that bad boy on my facebook page!!

 

[Withnail]

I have been doing a bit of research into a certain something recently, which has lead me on to other certain somethings, including this one. I don't know whether you are aware of this, no doubt you are, but during the 60's there were three bars at the Swan, one of which was the George Borrow Bar.

George Borrow wrote a book called Romany Rye about his travels in England in the 1820's - during which time he stayed in, and worked as an ostler at, The Swan. While it may have been the Dodo by the time of Dickens, when Borrow was there it was anything but,

The inn of which I had become an inhabitant was a place of infinite life and bustle. Travellers of all descriptions, from all the cardinal points, were continually stopping at it: and to attend to their wants, and minister to their convenience, an army of servants, of one description or other, was kept—waiters, chambermaids, grooms, postillions, shoe-blacks, cooks, scullions, and what not, for there was a barber and hair-dresser, who had been at Paris, and talked French with a cockney accent, the French sounding all the better, as no accent is so melodious as the cockney. Jacks creaked in the kitchens turning round spits, on which large joints of meat piped and smoked before the great big fires. There was running up and down stairs, and along galleries, slamming of doors, cries of ‘Coming, sir,’ and ‘Please to step this way, ma’am,’ during eighteen hours of the four-and-twenty. Truly a very great place for life and bustle was this inn. And often in after life, when lonely and melancholy, I have called up the time I spent there, and never failed to become cheerful from the recollection.

The book has been 'Project Gutenburg'-ed, so if you want to read more it can be found here,

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25071/25071-h/25071-h.htm#startoftext

The Swan appears in Chapter XXIII p.141. - thought you might be interested

 

[PeterD]

It sounded like a bleak house then.

 

[ChrisLewis]

The attached Photo is of the old Borrow's Bar, the other bar was the American bar - where the coffee shop is now and then I believe a bar used to be situated where the present day kitchens are, plus we had a bar in the ball room on the first floor.

All interesting stuff..