The Lord Lister

We were looking for a place to stay in Hertfordshire. Mark wanted to see some of his old Morris mates so we thought that Hitchin or Letchworth would be best. We've stayed at the Broadway hotel in Letchworth. It's fairly awful. We've also stayed at Letchworth Hall and thought it was exceptionally nice, but a bit limited on nearby pubs and restaurants. Oddly, both hotels had the same rating on TripAdvisor - 3.5 out of 5. I was surprised because having stayed at both, I would give Letchworth Hall a significantly higher rating that I would give the Broadway.

We decided to look at Hitchin where there are far more pubs and restaurants. Several of the listings with the 4.5 ratings were like Letchworth Hall -- not in easy walking distance of pubs and restaurants. But then there was the Lord Lister - a 4 rating and conveniently located to everything. The hotel is within easy walking distance of the town center, the market and St. Mary's church with any number of pubs and restaurants to choose from. And free parking!

We checked in on Valentine's Day, so of course we wanted to have a "nice" dinner that evening. The young lady at the desk who checked us in immediately went to work to try to secure us a reservation for our Valentine's dinner. We didn't get our first choice of restaurant or dining time, but it was better than waiting until 9:30 or 10:00 or having horse meat at Burger King. We ate at La Bella Vita and it was "bella". But I know that the young lady went way beyond average customer service levels in order to help us secure a table.

Our breakfast was cooked to order - we could choose any combination of Full English Breakfast items, cereal and toast. Exceptionally good, especially when compared with the breakfasts served up by most of the franchise hotels.

We had the double executive suite. Sounds really big, doesn't it? It's not. The desk is tucked into the corner. There is a double bed, but we needed to be careful not to trip over one of our bags because only one of them would fit in the closet. The room was spotless, but it was small. But the hotel is old and has a great deal of charm and character. Charm is often defined as small and character consists of things like two walls of the bathroom being tiled vertically while the other two are tiled horizontally. I'm sure that's character. Keep in mind that this building started life as a school, later became a home for mentally weak and deficient girls and is named after the doctor who pioneered antiseptics. - (Hmmm. Do you think Listerine was named for him?)

I'm not sure why it wasn't mentioned in any of the TripAdvisor reviews, which were all positive, but there is no elevator - nor are there any ground floor rooms. The hallways and stairs are somewhat narrow and even though we're only staying in this hotel for two nights, we're in England for two weeks - and we have the legal limit on baggage. It was a bit of a struggle to get it up the stairs and into the room. But fortunately, we had help getting it back down.

The other thing that no one mentioned is the lack of mixer taps. This may fall into the category of character or charm, but I think it's dangerous. When you have one tap for hot and another for cold, you end up burning yourself when you're trying to wash your face. Maybe I'm just being picky, but I find it extremely difficult to wash my face in sinks that don't have mixer taps.

Other than those two little things, it's a very charming place and it has a lot of character. But the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff make for an exceptionally good experience!