The Honest Lawyer Hotel

The hotel was very nice. The room was clean and well appointed. The bar was dog friendly so your furry friend could join you for an evening drink. There is a lot to like about the Honest Lawyer Hotel. The staff are friendly, the food and drink is excellent and there is free, no strings attached WiFi. There is also a decent sized good quality car park.

Stayed here for work, pleasantly surprised by how nice my stay was. Staff were all pleasant, polite and helpful, breakfast was delicious and delivered to my table within 5 minutes of ordering. My room was very clean and comfortable, WiFi was excellent. Would definitely come here again.

Called in for a spot of lunch and a cuppa. Warm welcome by the one member of staff on duty - clearly short staffed but the service was impeccable. The chip serving us, I didn’t catch his name but he deserves a medal. His service was warm, friendly and efficient and nothing was too much trouble. |The food was lovely - not quite what was stated on the menu - I had a turkey sandwich which was supposed to be served on sourdough but nevertheless it was delicious and nicely presented. The bar rea is dog friendly, which isnt for everyone, but I believe dogs are not allowed in the restaurant area which is good. |The who area is clean and nicely presented, tastefully decorated.|The hotel has even the victim of foods over the years - it can’t be easy rebuilding a business each time. Please support this local establishment and help them get back on their feet. We will certainly be visiting again!

An afternoon tea reunion. Lovely sandwiches and a range of good cakes. Service with a smile. The bar is large and lacks atmosphere-perhaps a few flowers or plants may help. Dogs are allowed but perhaps should not be encouraged to sit on seats! The outside is dated and shrubs or trees would improve this. I’m sure this is a brilliant place to stay when visiting the city so I hope it will just step up a little bit. Smarten things. Nice staff. Good day.

Booked this hotel to attend a funeral, the reception of which was held here. We arrived well before book in time, after a 6 hour drive from NE Scotland, and asked if we could have some space to change in. The staff member who we spoke to went out of his way to accomodate us and provided a room without any fuss.||Getting on to the room, it was absolutely presentable, clean and had everything I needed. The breakfast next morning was spot on and very reasonable price wise. I'd happily recommend this venue.

Nice hotel, clean and friendly staff. ||||Room set up is brilliant as you can park right outside your room. ||||Had the most violent shower ever.. It was the equivalent of an elephant pissing on an ant.. Yet surprisingly invigorating 🙂.. be lucky to get room 35..||||Only improvements I would suggest - firstly, extending the breakfast time until 10am (if possible) as 7 to 9 is a little difficult if you were socialising the night before. Add different types of steak to the menu as Rump isn't for everyone and needs longer to cook..||||Overall brilliant service at a very reasonable price.

Just had Xmas lunch with the family at the Honest Lawyer, and it was excellent. Great food, good value and the service was top notch. The booking experience with Steven was easy and painless (via email). Can thoroughly recommend the experience

Me and some friends stay here once per year, every year for a friends annual memorial. Normally it's OK, nothing spectacular but it's where we held my friends wake and so coming back here is fitting. However, this year we arrived, checked it and sat for some food and drinks. I ordered a medium steak, two of my friends had some type of noodles and another fish and chips. My steak arrived and was like hsoe leather. I'm not one to complain, it was well overcooked but I was hungry and so started eating it. I had three small pieces and then the smell of it hit me. It was clearly off and it stank. I ate some of the mushrooms and they had obviously been cooked with the steak because they smelt awful too. I just ate some of the chips and just wanted the smell taken away from me. The noodles had arrived and just looked like a huge plate of brown stodge. Honestly, it looked like a giant stool sample. Visually held zero appeal. The two do them picked through them looking for bits of chicken but it quickly became clear it was inedable. My third friend said his chops were fine but the fish was just a mush and was clearly microwaves. How can you microwave fish! I complained about the food and was asked what was wrong with it. Not wanting to make a fuss I requested the waitress smell my steak. As soon as she held the plate in front of her nose and could see her recoil. She took it into the kitchen and came back saying she would give us desert free of charge. Really poor given the fact that mine was certainly inedable. We had already paid for the food and again, I just didn't want to cause a fuss. By the time desert arrived I had stomach cramps and I knew that the small mouthfuls of steak had not sat well with me. I wasn't particularly ill in fairness, I had stomach cramps and several trips to the loo during the night but fortunately I had only eaten a small amount. We were the only people in the restaurant and at last orders we ordered a couple of drinks each. The look of disgust on the bar staffs face was surprising given that all in told we had spent approx £600 between the hotel rooms, food and drinks - and not forgetting the rotten steak - we were likely keeping them in a job during a quiet January! The following morning, we had prepaid for breakfast and I was hopefull it wouldn't be the same "chef". We went down for breakfast and I ordered an Egg & Bacon on toast. It was fine but the toast was just a single slice without any butter and the bacon was again, just a single piece. My friends ordered small full English and what arrived looked like anemic muxrowaved vegetable sausages and a dried up single piece of bacon. The beans were hard lumps of barely warm dried mush half dried into the side of the plate. Just awful. And so despite coming here year after year for many years, this will be my final visit. There are Premier Inns not too far away which we will goto in future. Sat here now still with stomach cramps, and if the "chef" cannot even smell the difference between rotten meat and good meat then I don't want to eat there. I would encourage anyway to avoid at all costs and save yourself an expensive trip to the lavatory.

Nice big pub/hotel which is nicely set out with plenty of room & privacy area. Just a latte & scone this time but menu looks good, south side of Durham on A167. Must call in again to eat. No idea of rooms but I believe it's been recently refurbished.

This is a really difficult review for me. Honest Lawyer is really an American-style hotel rather than a B&B or a "charming old-fashioned" hotel... The room was clean, and the bed was comfortable. I will also say that the restaurant had tasty dinner. The annoying parts of this stay unfortunately outweigh the positives in my mind. Firstly, the nice, quite room is basically completely Wi-fi proof. While they do offer free Wi-fi, I was unable to actually use it from my room - I had to either go outside, or back to the restaurant/lounge to connect. Second, while the dinner was pretty good, they ran out of cask-ale after my first pint, and didn't seem enthusiastic about changing the cask. Also, the dinner wasn't really a bargain. This dovetails in to the second issue I had with dining, which was the breakfast. It was a mediocre steam-tray buffet. It was not worth the £9.99 per person that they charge. Third, they don't have a business center - this isn't normally a huge deal, but I'd love to have been able to check in for my flight and print my boarding passes from the hotel, especially considering how troublesome their Wi-fi was. My overall summary of Honest Lawyer is really that it's about a 2-1/2 star experience. It's tolerable if you cannot find a B&B, but it really doesn't compare to a good B&B experience, and it's costly enough that it cannot realistically be called a bargain.

Stayed here recently as part of a living social deal. The rooms are indeed very nice, with a view of a field and a couple of pheasants at the back, and parking right outside the door at the front. There was a huge flat screen telly on the wall at the end of the bed, and the bathroom was nicely decorated. A few niggles tho: The toilet flush broke over and over again, and the cistern took eaons to fill. The offer on the Living social thing said free glass of wine on arrival, but it wasn't champagne at all. The wine that came free with the meal was a reasonable Merlot, but the Shiraz was nicer. Good bits: The food was indeed excellent, with nice flavours and well presented. I atre too much to get a sweet, but they looked lovely. Slept well, water was hot, and the staff friendly. We had a wander down a few footpaths nearby on the morning after, and the walk to the Viaduct was very nice.

Disappointing! We stayed for one night at this hotel. We enjoyed our evening meal and a good bottle of wine in the restaurant as well as a couple of cold beers in the bar after dinner. All of the staff at this pleasant hotel were friendly and efficient. Our room was in the single storey block of 'chalet style' accommodation at the back of the hotel, overlooking fields. We were able to park our car just outside our room door, which was very handy for transferring luggage to and from the room. Our room was comfortable and overall we retired to bed thinking that the hotel represented good value for money. The problem with the rooms however is that they are not adequately soundproofed. In fact I doubted if there was any acoustic insulation at all. We could hear people talking in the room next to ours, but the worst experience came just before 6am. An incredibly noisy commercial refuse collection vehicle entered the rear car park before 6am a time when I think that most guests in hotels are probably fast asleep . The sound of the vehicle's engine and refuse processing equipment woke us up, causing me to jump out of bed to investigate where the noise was coming from. The vehicle departed after about 10 minutes but by that time the traffic on the main road at the front of the hotel was becoming unbearably noisy. We couldn't get back to sleep on a morning when we had planned to sleep until 8am. After a reasonable breakfast we began our journey home feeling tired and disappointed with the hotel. If anyone writes that the chalet style rooms are quiet and peaceful I would cynically suggest that the author is a member of the hotel management team. When staying at an hotel the most essential requirement is for a good night's sleep. This hotel fails miserably on that score and we shall not be returning. If you really must stay here and you don't wish to be awoken before about 5.30 am, I would recommend that you try one of the rooms at the back of the main building. Avoid the chalets.

Excellent value!! We chose this on a special promo - proved to be a good choice. Styled along the lines of an American motel with rooms in a block behind the main building so room far enough away from the main road to kill any noise with lovely views out onto country fields. Nice walks nearby along riverbank. Excellent bus service into Durham - took only a few minutes. Food was a little too traditional English "pub grub" for me but good portions and reasonably priced. I would choose it again if visiting Durham.

Well I for one really really like this hotel. It's situated on the A167 just a couple of miles south of DUrham. It is easy to find and a decent bus service travels past regularly. It also has a large car park. I've never stayed in one of the rooms to be honest but they are situated around the car park in a courtyard style. They advertise them as boutique hotels which is probably quite apt as that is the style of the restaurant. The food is absolutely fab, not a huge choice but enough to find something you like and the decor is beautiful.

Went last week for a meal with friends. Mixed reviews. Home made burger was very tasty but would have been better with proper home made chips rather than what I think were frozen french fries. Rice served with the lamb was like quick cook or boil in the bag "Uncle Bens" type. It would have been better with proper basmati. Chargrilled bacon chop had not seen the char grill. For the quality of what was served, overpriced I think. On the positive side the staff were friendly and welcoming. Had expected better food and won't be returning.