What's on Travel
6th August 2004


Bathe in sheer luxury, By Beverley Woolford

When your hotel room is the same size as the entire ground floor of your two bedroom house you know you are on to a good thing.

Such was the case with the Queensberry Hotel in Bath, a Georgian townhouse built for the Marquis of Queensberry, and converted into a privately run boutique hotel with 29 individually designed rooms.

Our room for the night, a former drawing room on the first floor, was huge, beautifully decorated, supremely comfortable, and not unlike staying in a lovely family home.

If it wasn't for the fact that we were in Bath, and there was plenty else to see, we could have happily stayed there all day, lounging on the sofas, staring up at the ornate plasterwork, or peering out of the double height windows to the world below.

Tucked away on a quiet residential street just off the Circus, the centerpiece of Bath's Georgian architecture, the Queensberry Hotel is within easy walking distance of Bath's unique selection of shops, the Romans Baths, Pump Rooms and Bath Abbey.

Owners Laurence and Helen Beere, who have run the hotel for just over a year now, pride themselves on treating their guests as individuals, and providing a welcoming a personal service. Their staff to guest ratio is bigger that your average hotel, and it shows.

There is always someone on hand to help you out, take your bags and show you to your room, provide you with drinks, and make sure that everything is to your satisfaction. Ans it's the little touches like this, along with providing you with a morning paper, and valet parking your car, that make all the difference.

As if that wasn't enough, the friendly welcoming service also extends to the Queensberry's celebrated restaurant The Olive Tree. Popular with guests and locals, the Olive Tree , situated in the basement beneath the hotel, offers contemporary British cuisine.

Menus are an eclectic combination of modern English flavours and Mediterranean influences and despite its minimalist interior and petite but pretty style of presentation, there is nothing pretentious about this restaurant. The food was fantastic, beautifully presented tasty and fresh. The service was equally as warm, friendly and unobtrusive; the wine list was extensive and well mapped-out.

Guests can choose from the three-course menu of the day for a reasonable fixed price, or choose from the a la carte menu. On our visit it featured delights such as pan fried chicken and foie gras sausage with apple jus, potato and leek truffle terrine with gribache sauce to start; followed by fillet of wild trout with crushed Jersey Royals and best end of Cornish lamb with pea puree.