The Ashcombe Regency, Where The Bill Contained Amenities We Would Have Loved To Have Seen

The Ashcombe Regency is a well-kept building with a pleasant staircase and a bill that arrives like a summons. The room rate was quoted clearly and in advance, at a figure we accepted without complaint. What followed the room rate was a second document, longer than the first, in which the establishment set out everything else it believed we owed it and, in one or two cases, everything else it believed existed.

There was a resort levy. There is no resort. There is a car park with three spaces and a hedge. When we enquired, we were told that the levy supports the upkeep of shared facilities, and when we asked which facilities, the gentleman at the desk indicated, with a small and honest gesture, the corridor.

There was a daily wellness suite access charge of nine pounds. The wellness suite is on the first floor and it is locked. Behind the door, we were eventually told, are two exercise bicycles and a room that was going to be a sauna. The charge is not for use of the suite. The charge, so far as anyone could establish, is for access, and access had been granted in principle.

There was a housekeeping enhancement fee. There was a service charge, and then a second service charge filed under a different heading and applied to the first. There was three pounds for a bottle of water we never opened, which the statement showed as consumed on the night of arrival, at an hour when the bottle and ourselves were still complete strangers.

Halfway down the page sat a charge described only as Sundry. We asked what Sundry covered. The gentleman turned his screen towards us, which we took as an act of quiet solidarity, and the two of us read it together in silence. The screen also said Sundry. Neither of us pretended otherwise, and we have rarely felt closer to anyone in hospitality.

We queried five items and four were removed immediately, without argument, which tells you they were never expected to survive contact with a reader. The fifth was the resort levy, which is non-negotiable, on the grounds that the resort is non-existent and therefore cannot be inspected. We paid it. Somewhere out there a hedge is being maintained to a standard we shall never be permitted to witness.