The Green House Hotel in Bournemouth is “The Greenest Hotel in the UK“, not in colour, but in in environmental impact. Before I launch into our review, I feel I need to set the scene, to explain why this hotel has left such a lasting impression on us…
A few days after we got engaged, Mike and I made a last minute decision to travel down to Bournemouth for a celebratory weekend away. We took 8 Month old Baby Bear with us. Unfortunately our first night was anything less than pleasant as we picked a 4 star lodge (The Lodge at Meyrick Park), which did not meet up to standard 4 star expectations. At 2am in the morning I went onto booking.com and found another hotel for the following night. We fleed at 8am and checked in instead to The Green House in Bournemouth, a grade II listed Victorian boutique hotel. The Green House couldn’t have been more different. It was absolutely wonderful and a real celebration.
When I showed up at the hotel to drop off our luggage, 6 hours before check-in, I explained the horrible night we had at the previous accommodation and how disappointed we were to start our engagement celebrations that way. The concierge at The Green House was so polite and welcoming and assured me that he was keen to turn our stay around and give us some lovely memories to go home with. We received a phone call just a few hours later, telling us that our room was ready early, we had been upgraded and there was a surprise waiting for us in our room. When we arrived at the hotel, we were personally escorted to our rooms by the lovely young man who I had met earlier that morning. We were shown to the hotels bridal suite, the biggest and most luxurious room in the hotel and were certainly wowed by it.
The room was modern, beautiful, spacious and every tiny little detail had been carefully designed. What sets The Green House apart from all the other hotels I have ever stayed in, was the incredible detail that had gone into making it an eco-friendly hotel. Every single aspect of the hotel, was detailed in the handbook in the bedroom. It told you were every single part of the hotels design came from. Most of the materials used, had been locally sourced. Ethics had been studied. Carbon footprints reduced. Recycled or sustainable products had been used. You could see where the local eco friendly paint, the Forest Stewardship Certified wallpaper and the locally farmed 100% wool carpet had come from. Even the wooden flooring underneath the carpet was sustainably sourced. The blinds, the heating, the towels and the linen. The soaps, the furniture, the curtains. It was all detailed, what it was made from and where exactly it came from. The Green House generate their own electricity and use energy efficient lighting. The water was bottled on site and the cookies in the room were baked in the kitchen downstairs by the hotels own chefs (and stored in recycled glass jars). I have never witnessed more attention to detail in a hotel, than this. It was marvellous.
The English-made bed was a dream to sleep on and the bedside furniture was made from trees which had fallen in storms or been cut by tree surgeons. The organic fairtrade cotton linen felt luxurious. The reclaimed (and enamelled in the UK) Victorian roll top bath was a delight. The toilet had a low water-consumption flush and the sinks were made of natural stone. You could walk in one side of the enormous shower and walk out of the other.
The “surprise” I mentioned, were two extremely delicious chocolate brownies, placed together to look like a heart, baked by the hotels award-winning chef. The restaurant, is called Arbor and has two Rosette’s. I have blogged a separate review of Arbor restaurant, which I highly recommend reading, as there I show the dishes we ate during a three course meal and also breakfast. It also talks about how the ingredients and the restaurant fit in with the rest of the hotels green ethos.
We had been worried about taking a baby into the restaurant as it looks rather posh, but we needn’t have been. The Green House and Arbor are baby and child friendly. There are baby changing facilities on the ground floor and Arbor were happy to provide us everything we needed to warm baby food to feed Baby Bear at dinner. At breakfast they made him his own porridge too. We were given a code to use the lift from the car park, to make using the pushchair easier and as there were two steps down to our room, we were offered a hand there too. He was made as welcome as we were.
Much of the beer, wine and cider in the bar is locally brewed or the carbon footprint of each drink carefully managed. The bar area has both lounge seating for relaxing and more upright seating with tables for those who are having meetings or want to do a little work. There’s also a stunning garden with seating for sunnier days and by now you can probably guess… that the garden too was designed to be both environmentally friendly and charming.
Customer service was second to none here. The staff, particularly the young man on the desk, bend over backwards to help their guests. They are polite, professional, charming, friendly and go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the absolute best customer service imaginable. I realise this post sounds gushy, but I can’t put into words how much Mike and I fell in love with this hotel. We had had such a terrible night in the previous hotel and The Green House completely turned our trip around, giving us wonderful memories of our engagement celebrations and a longing to go back and experience it all again. If I ever won the lottery, it’d be my dream to own a hotel like The Green House.
The entire hotel was immaculately clean. I confess, I am one of those people who will walk around thinking I am Alex Polizzi, looking for dust, or faults no matter how small. But this hotel was utterly flawless. I’ve stayed in well known five star hotels which I could pick holes in, yet this four star hotel, which I’d never heard of, was simply the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in. We didn’t want to leave and we are desperate to return.