AN INSPECTOR CALLS

His mission: To test hotel hospitality to the limit

AMERSHAM is way beyond the M25, but, somehow, it is still reachable on the Underground. It’s the last stop on the Metropolitan Line. Handy for Londoners looking for a quick fix, but not so rural that they’ll get withdrawal symptoms.

It’s pretty, too, in a candy box sort of way. Prosperous, but perhaps a little suburban for some tastes. Barbour jackets tend to be spotless around here and the High Street has an Ask restaurant.

The Crown sits at the heart of it all and could easily be a Farrow & Ball showroom — but can go one better.

The bedroom scene involving Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings And A Funeral was shot here — in Room 101 where we are billeted, albeit after lengthy negotiations over price.

It should cost £250, which is silly money, given that it’s a dark, ground-floor room in the courtyard where you can hear every word of diners eating alfresco. But it’s tastefully put together (designed by Ilse Crawford, who worked on Soho House in New York), with a free-standing bath near the bed, plus a separate shower room and high, gabled ceiling.

‘Modern coaching inn’ is how The Crown describes itself and that’s about right, with plenty of inglenook fireplaces, creaky floorboards and exposed timber.

We have an indifferent dinner. My starter consists of three scallops looking lonely next to a smear of apple puree and my wife’s Caesar salad is plodding.

But where things begin to rankle is at breakfast, especially as I have just read Crawford’s comment in the directory: ‘I hate carelessness.’

Me, too. Which is why I’m sorry the complimentary newspaper I had ordered doesn’t turn up; why at these prices I had expected a range of nuts at breakfast, some interesting bread, rather than just sliced white or brown, proper napkins rather than paper jobbies and salt and pepper on the table.

It’s a Tuesday morning, a hangover from the weekend, perhaps. Or are the staff unmotivated, happy for things to tick over, rather than picking up momentum?

At checkout, I ask sleepy-head if one can get an overland train from Amersham. ‘Don’t think so,’ she says. Then she asks a friend in the form of Google and says there is a train service after all.

Basic knowledge, you might think. You’ll have a good time at The Crown, but it should be far better than it is — far better than it thinks it is. The Crown, 16 High Street, Old Amersham,Bucks, HP7 0DH 01494 721541, thecrownamersham.com. Doubles from £110 b&b.