My third afternoon of 2013 was at Dovecliff Hall Hotel at the borders of Staffordshire and Derby in England. I was staying with my boyfriend in a post-dissertation/post-residence (read: homelessness) period. Literally in walking distance was this hotel and they were serving afternoon tea every day of the week. Knowing I liked that kind of stuff, my boyfriend planned for us to go one afternoon. So thoughtful!
We arrived at Dovecliff Hall and it was beautiful! We were quickly directed to the glass house attached to the hotel. There was no one else so it was pretty quiet. The atmosphere was very nice with soft music in the background. We also had a nice view on the property gardens.
*My apologies for the picture, we had already eaten our sandwiches and slices of cake when I thought of taking the picture.
We decided to take the Traditional Tea which included scones, sandwiches, cakes and of course, tea. However, it was much more basic than I would have thought. We had two finger sandwiches each (which isn’t even a whole sandwich when you think about it). One slice of cake each…a very sad-looking slice of white cake if I remember correctly. Nothing impressive or creative or even appetising. The scones were delicious however and as you can see there was plenty of jam and clotted cream, which was the best thing about the whole afternoon tea in my opinion. Moreover, there sadly weren’t much tea options.
Despite getting what we paid for, I wished there had been an option between the Traditional Tea (£6.95) and the Luxury Tea (£14.95), both in quantity and price. One was a pretty decent price but sadly not much food and the other one was too expensive and yet not enough food to split (of course I can somewhat understand the reasoning behind that) . In St Andrews, we had paid £10 each (which, in my opinion, is a happy medium) and got much superior food and service than we got at Dovecliff. I can understand why it seemed much less interesting and sophisticated than what I had had in Edinburgh or St Andrews, the Midlands not being a very touristic place, but I wished there had been more options nonetheless.
I would give the experience an overall 6/10. It wasn’t terrible! It was actually pretty quaint, but let’s say that it wasn’t the best I’ve seen.
