I have just returned from my second stay in the White hart and, once again, I thoroughly enjoyed the visit. The location of the hotel is in the Cathedral quarter of Lincoln, which is the most historic and prettiest part of the city. There is an abundance of interesting shops, cafes, pubs and restaurants in the immediate vicinity and a 10 minute walk down the aptly named "Steep Hill" takes you to the city centre and all that Lincoln has to offer.
Parking can be a problem in Lincoln and a major bonus is that the White Hart, which is a historic old coaching inn, has a private car park just opposite the hotel. As previously mentioned by another reviewer, the public rooms are relatively modern and, as such, are unremarkable and I could never understand why anyone would choose to spend time drinking in the hotel bar, which is just like any other hotel bar, when there are literally dozens of cosy little pubs in the surrounding streets.
The restaurant Grill Room is spacious and comfortable and both the food and the service are top notch - including the excellent breakfast, which as well as being plentiful and delicious is cooked fresh to order as opposed to the ubiquitous buffet that most hotels seem to favour these days. Certainly if maintaining a traditional system of ordering breakfast from a menu and having it freshly cooked is deemed old fashioned - then long may the White Hart continue bucking the trend.
For me the crowning glory of this hotel is the style of the bedrooms, which though modern and well appointed, are decorated and furnished in what I would call "old fashioned, floral comfort". The sort of rooms a rich granny might have had when you were a kid. On both my visits the rooms have been large, very well appointed, spotlessly clean and well decorated. They simply ooze charm, and on our latest visit the room featured an old cast-iron fireplace, a walk-in wardrobe and a bathroom you could play a tennis match in. How much nicer than the stereotypical hotel rooms that you find in the top chain hotels - Hilton, Holiday Inn and the like, where the only way you can remind yourself where you are staying is to look at the headed notepaper. The White Hart is charmingly different and although we were only there for one night we would have loved to have stayed longer and will certainly return.
In short, the White Hart is a historic hotel in a wonderful location with quality service and stylish and comfortable rooms at an affordable price. What more could you ask?

Had a business Christmas Party at the White Hart. We were about 80 of us and there were others their too. I was very pleased at the service and food. Food was very hot, delivered table by table, in an efficient manner. The food was also very good quality and well cooked. The Christmas crackers were a bit disappointing, but hey, you struggle to get a decent cracker anyway. All in all a very enjoyable evening at a venue I'd recommend for group bookings

This hotel is a mix of modern public rooms (bar/reception/restaurant) with traditional bedrooms - I would have preferred the public rooms to have been more traditionally furnaished, given the age of the hotel, but that's just my preference. The room we stayed in was a large executive room with a great view of the front of the cathedral over the rooftops and had secondary glazing. If you don't want to sleep so close to the cathedral, with regard to its bells, then don't stay here. Personally, it didn't matter to me and added to its charm. The only downside to the room was the constant noise coming from the extractor fans directly below the windows, which we weren't warned about. Breakfast was served from hotplates, rather than being individually cooked to order, but everything was piping hot. As for car parking - it is run on a first-come, first-served basis but there are two public car parks within the vicinity. We did not have a problem in parking in the hotel's own car park. There is a circular bus route that stops near to the hotel entrance for ease of getting up and down "Steep Hill" with your shopping. I found it a little expensive for what was on offer, but it has no real competition, and it could be argued that its location next to both the cathedral and the castle and being at the top of the city makes it worth that little bit more.

The widely diverging recent reviews for the White Hart are a little confusing, maybe it's a matter of taste. It's true that the rooms are a little old fashioned, arguably tired/shabby, but I found my room comfortable and it had a stunning view of the floodlit Minster (cathedral) which is immediately behind the hotel. It was also very quiet - it may be that rooms to the front of the hotel are noisier, but I requested a quiet room and I got one.

The location is very central in the historic part of Lincoln, between the Castle and the Minster. Car parking is tightly controlled around there, so the hotel's private garage and car park, opposite the main entrance, is a boon. I can't understand the comment about the car park being full after 10am as I believe it only fills up as people check in during early evening and when I was there (on a Tuesday night, probably not the busiest in December) it wasn't full at any hour. Maybe this is a particular problem on Sundays when the Christmas market is on.

Throughout my short stay the service was good, both in reception and in the restaurant. The food was of very good quality and well presented, both at dinner and breakfast and there was a reasonable choice of wines. I would not hesitate to return in future, though I feel that the room rates are slightly on the high side.