Chatsworth Hotel in Worthing — a detailed review of the oldest hotel in the town

travelhotel

25 Mar

Chatsworth Hotel is the oldest hotel in the seafront of Worthing, which is a bit close to Brighton. The family has owned it for more than 200 years, and the Georgian building has already become Grade II listed.

I hesitated to stay at first because of low rating (7.0 out of 10 on Booking.com) but I considered it because of low price (£43/night) with classic room design. On my two-night stay in Worthing, I decided to give it a try but only one night to see. If it is worth staying, I can always stay again.

The view

The room type I stayed in was Garden Facing Twin room. The garden being faced here is Steyne Gardens which is a public space surrounded by roads with vehicles. I was allocated to the first floor and I was surprised to see the small portion of sea from my room.

They do have perfect sea-view rooms which are the most expensive (around £93/night in winter). There are also rear facing rooms with the interesting view of the bus garage and one of the oldest cinemas in the UK: The Dome Cinema. The windows of the stairs in the hotel can give you some ideas of how it is, and in those rooms you may be able to overlook the pier as well. If I come back I will try one of them to sketch the cinema and the buses in the garage to capture the interesting scene of Worthing.

Design and maintenance

The style of the room was a bit traditional and elegant, especially the walls which were painted with dark red and pink and the well-maintained, solid wood furnitures. My bedroom (including carpet) and bathroom were so clean and spotless, especially the latter was disinfected well (the smell could tell).

My bathroom had a bathtub, and the water from the shower was very strong. However the design of the bath tap was confusing, even though there was a guide on the wall telling guests to turn (anti)clockwise on the central tap to turn on/off the water, but it failed to mention the more I turned, the hotter water I would get. As a result, when I noticed the water was not hot at the beginning (as it took a few seconds to warm up), I turned the left red tap to adjust the temperature. It worked but I found I couldn’t turn off. I didn’t realise the right way until I asked the staff to sort it out: the shower in the middle and the bath on the sides.

The bathroom style was like the bathroom in a 1950-70s apartment, which did not quite match the elegant traditional bedroom.

The bath experience was not bad, though. It will be better if the two issues were totally solved: the door was tight to open (with some force, so I decided to not close it entirely to prevent from being trapped inside). The shower tap was hard to turn off. One of the staff member could make it a little bit easier to turn by using a hammer, but he also explained that some facilities were more than 20 years so it could only be fixed by replacing the brand new..

The light of the bedroom was warm, but the one at the entrance was cold. I wished the staying experience could be more consistent.

Facilities

The Garden Facing Twin had a small table with a chair beside a desk. This is a plus compared to other hotels so you can enjoy your cup of tea besides on my bed or the working desk.

A trouser press was equipped in the room, which is rare in hotels from my point of view.

There was a luggage rack built into the working desk, which was nice as I don’t need to place my backpack and tote bag on the floor.

The wardrobe was very big compared to other hotels.

There were teas and coffees but sadly there were no decaffeinated options in each.

The kettle was super clean. No limescale inside.

There was free Wi-Fi however the signal was very weak and even sometimes missing in my room. The good news was I still had my reliable mobile signal to access the internet.

The radiator was small in my spacious room, but open all the time. Under 6-7c the room was still warm.

There were comments about the poor soundproofing due to the noise from the buses and other kinds of vehicles. During my stay the roads outside were not so busy that I was not disturbed during sleeping.

Conclusion

After a night of stay I am sure I had a good experience in the hotel, much nicer than some other hotels I stayed before. Chatsworth Hotel is highly recommended especially if you would like experience staying in a historical architecture. The rating as of writing is closer to some bad hotels but if you read carefully the recent comments, almost all people gave 7 to 8, rarely 1 or 2, which implies the service of the hotel has become more reliable and consistent. As Worthing becomes one of the sea towns I like, I will definitely come back!