Burley Manor

Lovely place but way too pricey for one night breakfast not included

History

It is a period property

No lift

Excellent customer service, very good evening dinner, great value

We forgot that B&B was for Continental breakfast only and cooked was a £10 surcharge. Prefer that you make it inclusive even at a slight increase in price

It's a beautiful property in a quiet part of the New Forest, and we visited at a good time of year because it wasn't just horses but also pigs that were out and about! The house itself is lovely and the rooms are nice, if a little dated.

The rooms have a lot of potential, but some of the furniture looks dated, tired, rather than vintage. A targeted renovation could breathe life into the place. More pressingly, and the reason I'm unlikely to come back is that the receptionist was not at all welcoming. She was brusque, short with her words, and quite inflexible. I don't think she smiled once in our conversation! What was most notable is that she was decidedly more pleasant to white patrons who arrived before and after us - I saw her guide people to their rooms and make small talk while my (brown) family received none of those pleasantries. I didn't enjoy the way we were treated and, whether it was a microaggression or not, whether it was racist or not, it wasn't a level of hospitality I look for when I travel and it dampened my enthusiasm for the stay. I'd encourage non-white families to be cautious when visiting Burley Manor. Note that this really was a case of one individual: other staff we met were perfectly agreeable.