My daughter and I were booked to spend one night (November 2011) in two rooms in this hotel. The rooms were booked through LateRooms at a cost of 55 GBP each room including breakfast. On arrival at the hotel I noticed a rubbish skip in the very small car park and on entering reception a prop supporting the ceiling in the reception area, this should have told us enough but we were tired after a long drive and decided to check-in. The male staff member told us that he would have to process our debit or credit cards and there would be a charge of 1 GBP for each transaction, we reluctantly agreed as there had been no mention of this charge on the LateRooms or the hotel websites. We were given the keys to two rooms on the first floor. On entering the corridor that led to our rooms, I noticed that the lights at the far end of the corridor did not appear to work which was annoying because one of our rooms was at the end. On entering the first room the first thing I noticed was a very strong chemical smell and it was extremely hot. The room was scruffy, the furniture worn, the TV didn't work, there was patches of mould on the walls & celing in the showeroom, no soap had been provided and the electric shower switch extension cord was missing. We walked along the dark corridor to the other room passing, on our left, dooways that had been blocked up with plasterboard and we noticed build debris on the carpet ( was this why the lights were off to hide the building work?). The second room was worse first than the first room, it was cold (the windows didn't close properly), there were huge cracks in the walls, patches of mould on the showeroom ceiling and walls. The furniture was worn and scruffy and there was a line of black dust on a coaxial cable socket on the external wall above one of the beds (see photo). I returned to my car and retrieved my digital camera and took some photos. Then my daughter and I returned to the reception area and stated that we were not happy with the standard of our rooms. The male staff member quickly got very defensive and had an excuse for every item that we bought to his attention. At no time did he offer us alternative rooms or did he offer to view the rooms to see what we were concerned about. In the end we said that we would not be staying and he stated that we would still be charged for the rooms because he could now not re-let them. I asked for a refund on the grounds of poor standard of the rooms and I was refused. I have since written to the manager of the the Stockwood hotel asking for a refund and the reasons for not staying in the hotel but to date I have not had an answer. I think that the standard of the rooms did not justify the charges and the fact that refurbishment work was being carried out should have been posted on the hotels website and the LateRooms website. I have complained to Late Rooms and they have defended the hotel !