Lavender Lodge Tea Room & Bistro in Wiltshire

With roads closed or completely impassable due to the severe rain from Storm Bert, we finally gave up trying to get home late on Sunday evening and parked up in the car park of the Bolingbroke. Too worried to go any further, we nervously knocked on the door, despite the pub being officially closed, and to our relief was invited in and offered a room for the night. Jo and Rob looked after us all evening, the room was clean and perfect for the emergency overnight stay and even made us breakfast before we set off in the morning. I can thank you both enough for your hospitality and kindness in what was, quite literally, an incredibly stressful occasion. Would recommend to anyone and even planning a return trip, under better conditions, to come back and say thank you once again. Wonderful. Ray and Marion

The website states it’s open until 4pm, it doesn’t say the kitchen closed at 2:30pm. We were happy to have cold quiches but the waitress made us feel so unwelcome even though we spent £46. She then cleaned the table implying we should leave, so we did and we won’t be coming back!

We booked a table for the opening party, the pub opened earlier in the week with new staff and owners.

We visited on a Sunday for breakfast. Arriving a couple of minutes after 10am (opening time), we queued for a table and then again to order food. There were plenty of tables but appreciated it was busy - not all tables were full. We waited for 50 minutes for our food to arrive, although coffee arrived much earlier. This was prompted by us asking where our food was/checking the order had been made, to which we were told ‘we’d just have to wait because it was busy’. The food arrived 5 minutes later. The food was tasty and we’ve no complaints about the quality or price. But, something about the system here just doesn’t make sense, queuing at every point and then waiting another 50 minutes for scrambled eggs on toast and a bacon sandwich, doesn’t make sense. We arrived at 10 and didn’t leave until 12:15…. People had started arriving for lunch! Sadly, we’d not return. There are just other places nearby that are doing it better.

We visited with family from France with dog who were looking forward to visiting for coffee and a light snack for lunch,we arrived on a dry bright Sunday lunch, although relatively busy, there were several tables empty, albeit full of dirty leftovers, when we pointed this out to the lovely girl behind d counter she promptly cleared table and wiped, from this point expectations fell away quickly, there was absolutely nothing to eat except carrot cake or muffins fresh or pre packed biscuits and flapjack ! We mentioned this to the counter staff who just said sorry were short staffed and low on food, there were 8 members of staff behind the counter ! Oh well, we ordered coffee which hit the spot first round fine, second round incorrect, then members of our party wished to visit the loo before leaving, a queue of several people waiting constantly to use 1 toilet that was disgustingly dirty from top to bottom ! All in all a poor experience of what some 18 months ago was a lovely place to visit, maybe it was just an Off day, but to have that many staff not doing a lot or cared a lot, not sure I would be in a hurry to revisit