I recently made a trip with a few friend to Reading, England for the annual music festival. We decided camping wouldn't be ideal and decided for a small family owned hotel/bed and breakfast.

The Crown Hill Lodge was perfect. The service was immaculate and our hosts dealt were as inviting as anyone I've ever met. The rooms aren't anything amazing when compared to a chain hotel at the same price but they weren't lacking in any form. Plenty of room and some incredibly comfortable bed spreads. The breakfast was the highlight of our stay - Crown Lodge offers a cold breakfast of cereal and fruit but also have a cook to order menu that is fantastic. Definitely the best full English Breakfast I had in all my adventure in the UK.

During my visit the hosts at Crown Lodge had experienced a death in the family during what may have been their busiest weekend of the year and still provided every service and courtesy you could have expected. Staying at their guest house was easily the best accommodation I've had the opportunity to enjoy in all my travels. Would recommend 10 times out of 10.

I stayed here at the beginning of February on one of the coldest days of the year.....2 degrees when I arrived at 13.00. I received a warm welcome from one of the proprietors and was shown to my room which was clean and adequate, if somewhat sparse and austere. The coldness of the room was the first thing that hit me....no heating on inspite of the bitterly cold weather, and a leaking tap in the en-suite. As I had made prior arrangements and had to leave almost immediately I had no time to mention the above at this point. The following morning the leaking tap was by now "running" and the shower was cold to luke warm at best.
As breakfast was served only between 07.00 and 09.00 I was down for breakfast by 08.15 which can only be described as disastrous. In spite of an extensively printed menu and "Good Food" award notices, the reality was somewhat different different. No choice of breads for the toast (even though the menu clearly stated the choices), cheap supermarket own labels cereals and yoghurts and instant coffee passed off as FRESH coffee!
When I challenged one of the waiting staff about the instant coffee, it was argued that they only served fresh coffee and was subsequently shown a huge tin of INSTANT coffee, which they truly believed to be FRESH coffee.....UNBELEIVABLE! The staff really were clueless as to what constituted fresh coffee.
On my return to my room at 08.40 I found the room suddenly very cold; the heating had been swithced off, on another freezing cold morning, and was just changing into warmer clothes (in a state of undress), when there was a brief knock on the door and, without waiting for any response, in walked a cleaner. I complained and received a curt apology.
I decided to check out ASAP and complained about the cold room, running tap and luke warm shower to one of the other proprietors. No apology was given....he simply said he didn't understand it at all!

The owner is very courteous and pleasant but the breakfast staff clueless! Our double room was about right for the price (we paid £75) but the continental breakfast was appalling. For this price I expected filtered coffee and the croissants to be decent. No, the coffee they tried to serve me was instant and when I questioned the staff she looked at me bewildered, didn't understand what I meant by 'filtered' coffee and brought out the hugh can of instant coffee she'd just try to give me! I opted for tea instead. Then the croissants I had asked for during booking were really brioches - those sweet glazed roll thinglys. Turning to the buffet table I looked for some solace but only found miserable supermarket basics brand yogurt. Breakfast for me is one of the highlights of staying over so it really spoilt it for me. How can they get it so wrong!

Stayed here for over 6 months and saw a lot of changes, new beds, bedding decor.
Big safe car park, breakfast was good and cooked to order.
Manager and his wife very welcoming and could not do enough to help.
Best pup in Reading at the bottom of the road. Bonus.