AN INSPECTOR CALLS
His mission: To test hotel hospitality to the limit
THERE is nothing quite like pitching up somewhere you’ve never been before and shaking your head in wonderment. Saffron Walden does that for me — a charming market town in Essex with some thrilling medieval buildings. The one occupied by The Cross Keys is regarded as particularly important, dating back some 850 years, but done up a few years ago with great panache.
There are six rooms upstairs, reached via an airless staircase and a smelly narrow corridor. There’s not a lot you can do about that apart from squirting some air freshener.
Our room (£100 B&B) is small and sticky but the duvet and pillows are stuffed with Hungarian goose down feathers and there’s a Nespresso machine and iPod docking station.
We can’t find the switch to the bathroom. ‘Look up,’ Sir John Betjeman always advised. And so we do, and see a switch high above the door near the ceiling. Anyone under 5ft would need a chair to reach it.
The restaurant is buzzing — and so is our Portuguese waiter when we are indecisive about choosing a wine. Swiftly, he has five bottles on the table and wants us to sample them all. Apparently the owner has an Australian wine-maker friend and so most of the cheap and cheerful options come from Down Under.
Some of the tables for two are divided off by doors hanging from the ceiling. We eat remarkably well and by the time we conk out I’m banging on and on about the joys of Saffron Walden. ‘You’re repeating yourself,’ says my wife.
At around 6am we are woken with a start by the street-cleaning vehicle going back and forth for 20 minutes.
Then, when we go down for breakfast in the adjoining Molly’s Coffee and Cake Shop I order two boiled eggs, only to be told the chef can do every kind of egg except boiled. ‘That can’t be true,’ I tell the waitress. ‘Sorry,’ she says. Overall, there must be better places to stay in Saffron Walden but I would be surprised if there’s a more genial option for dinner.
The Cross Keys, 32 High Street, Saffron Walden, Essex, CB10 1AX 01799 522 207 theoldcrosskeys.co.uk Doubles from £100 B&B