my accomodation in Newbury

I often spend one night a week here in Newbury and normally stay at Pilgrims Guest House which is about a 10 minute walk from work and £52/night for a single en suite room.

I think the Bed and Breakfast business in Newbury is very lucrative.
Tariffs are high and so are occupancy rates (often booked out).
I guess the demand is from contractors working for Vodafone (I am not sure what other companies are here) and then are other other workers and visitors.
I have stayed in 3 different b and bs in Newbury. What is most important to me is that place is quiet, the room is ‘cosy’ and as I don’t have a car, easy to get to – preferably walking distance.

I stay at Pilgrims which is the closest and I think the best of the 3 but also the most expensive. Pilgrims guesthouse is quite large, and it is like a big ‘house’. There are 3 floors. On the ground floor there is the dining area and a kitchen next to it and at least one room which is a family room I think. On the second floor there are 8 rooms a mixture or ensuite and non-ensuite rooms. I am not sure what is on the third floor – whether there are more rooms or its private.

On the ground floor there are 2 rooms set up for breakfast dining. They have 3 choice of cereals, orange juice and grapefruit slices. For breakfast I normally have the veg version of the full breakfast, and I get mushrooms, tomatoes, fried egg and baked beans and toast. They do a full english breakfast (with sausage and bacon) and eggs on toast and beans on toast.

The single rooms are quite small. One room I stayed in didn’t have a wardrobe and just 4 hooks and hangers - which I ok as I am only there for one night – but this is the first place I have seen which didn’t have a wardrobe. The double room I stayed has a wardrobe. Generally the place is very clean and the bathroom is clean and ‘modern’ apart from the showerhead which is fixed. You get 2 small bars of soap and a satchel of shampoo which are impossible to open.

Pilgrims is a ‘guesthouse’ and doesn’t really feel like a b and b, and it is run or owned by a ltd company.

Addendum to Pilgrims :
Yesterday night was my last night that I had booked to stay at Pilgrims and I have changed my view on that place. My contract is finishing up, so I wont be staying in Newbury anymore, but it I had to stay longer , I would try to find somewhere else.

I did have the feeling that the place was bigger than I had seen and before I had only seen rooms on the ground and first floor of the house but yesterday I was in a room (£62 for a double) in another section of the place. There is an extension on the right hand side of the house towards the back – there are 2 rooms on the ground level and 2 rooms on the first level. The extension is actually attached to the house but you don’t enter through the house but from side. The room was bigger but was much noiser than the rooms inside the ‘original’ house even though the rooms are no closer to the street. I could hear traffic throughout the evening and morning. Also I can hear noise from the room next door – I didn’t hear talking or the tv, but I was able to hear switches being turned off and on and doors opening and closing. There was also noise from the water system or something in the bathroom. In my rooms in the ‘original house’ I didn’t hear traffic noise at all or much noise from adjacent rooms. I slept in later than usual and so I didn’t get to the breakfast room until around 845am and was told they finish serving breakfast at 830am! So I missed out on breakfast which I wasn’t pleased about. I find the hours they keep for breakfast is too strict (they told me today it was 715am to 830am (I guess I should have asked them the night before or earlier) ) and they wont budge on those time at all – they wont serve any breakfast any earlier or any later ( even if its only 15 minutes! – and I have stayed there many times!)…
...

I have stayed Ingeldene (£45/night), which is about a 40 minute walk, across and on the other side of town. This place is a bed and breakfast and I thought it had the cosiest rooms (although the toilets are pump operated…). The reason I don’t stay here is that is it on the main road and the ensuite room faces the road and it is really noisy. This place is doing well as they are building more rooms on the site behind the main house.

I have also stayed at Livingstone(£45/night) which is close to the stations – what I didn’t like about this place was I was in what could have been a garage – a small ‘building’ next to/behind the main house. I would have prefered to have been in the main house. The bathroom was very open (as it is also for wheel chairs) and so I felt really cold when having a shower and the water wasn’t hot enough.
One thing I noticed as that both the above b and bs both had an extra employee (not family member , overseas woman) to help out, so they are not just a wife or husband and wife business.