Rose & Crown Hotel - Tonbridge

You can usually tell something about a town from the quality of its principal hotel, and when high standards are combined with longevity and a prestigious pedigree, you know that both town and hotel are worthy of further exploration.

The fortunes of principal hotels have waxed and waned over the years, especially in provincial towns. I’m not going to go over the whole decline of the stage-coach trade following the arrival of the railways scenario, particularly as the advent of the motor car led to something of a revival in their fortunes, but you know what I mean.

There were two hotels in the centre of Ashford – the town where I grew up. The George and the County Hotel. When I was in the sixth form, and not necessarily old enough to drink, the George was a popular haunt of us youngsters. The County was much less so, being stuffy and very old-fashioned and, as far as I remember, I never set foot in the place, or even contemplating doing so.

The irony is that whilst both establishments are still trading, the County is now the town’s  Wetherspoon’s outlet. It no longer offers accommodation, although I’m pleased to report that the George, which is Ashford’s oldest coaching inn, still does.

I’m digressing a little, but I wanted to demonstrate the rise and sometimes the fall in the fortunes of provincial hotels, but before moving on I want to tell you about how I first became interested in such places.

Back in the early nineties, I read Charles Dickens’s  immortal novel, The Pickwick Papers for the first time. This timeless classic, with its narrative describing the adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club, requires little in the way of introduction, but for those unfamiliar with the book, the story recounts follows the experiences of  Mr Pickwick and his companions as they make their way by stage-coach, through the English countryside, to a number of provincial towns, stopping off at various old coaching inns along the way.

The work is considered an accurate portrayal of these old inns, and the characters often associated with them, and it was  reading this book which first sparked my interest in these now, largely vanished establishments which were, of course, the forerunners to our modern hotels. I read the book for a second time around ten years ago, and found it every bit as enjoyable as before.   

It’s time now to move closer to home and to the Rose & Crown Hotel which has been Tonbridge’s principal and most prestigious hotel, for the past 400 years. The Rose & Crown was originally a Tudor House, built during the 16^th Century, and these origins are still apparent in parts of the hotel. An attractive brick frontage was added to the building some two hundred years later, along with an impressive porch.

The balcony, on top of this structure, was traditionally the place from which election results were announced, whilst the coat of arms above the porch are those of the Duchess of Kent, mother to Queen Victoria. They commemorate frequent visits by the Duchess and her daughter to the town.

In more recent times the hotel has been owned by a succession of different companies, including the Forte Group but in 2010 the business was acquired by R & B Hotels who carried out extensive refurbishment and renovation of the rooms, restaurant and meeting areas, so that today it has all the modern facilities one would expect from a hotel in the 21st Century. 

The Rose & Crown is now part of the Best Western chain of hotels. The hotel has always been an inn of importance and now has 56 modern bedrooms. Its various function rooms allow it to cater for meetings, seminars, lunches, dinners and weddings, for groups of between 8 and 80 people.

There is a decked and heated outside court yard at the rear of the hotel, but many of the former stable buildings have either been converted into staff accommodation, or removed to make way for car parking. I have been to several functions at the Rose & Crown in my time, but my fondest memories are of the quiet bar at the front of the building, back in the late 1980’s – early 1990’s, when hotel stocked a well-kept pint of Draught Bass.

Sitting there quietly, enjoying a glass or two of Bass, whilst watching the world go by, in the street outside, was one of life’s little pleasures, so it was a shame when the hotel’s owners altered the arrangement and swapped everything around. Today, the interior is much more open plan, which is a shame in some respects, but I can understand why, for operational reasons, the hotel management have done this.

The Rose & Crown remains a popular place today; both as somewhere to meet and dine, but also for its original purpose of providing a bed for the night.  When my firm’s Japanese directors come over for the their twice yearly visits, they insist on staying at this attractive old inn, despite the uneven floors, because they love its old world atmosphere and charm, with its old oak beams and Jacobean wood panelling.

On Saturday, the Bailey family joined with a group of friends for a meal. I’m not sure what the official excuse was for this celebration, but the date happened to coincide with son Matthew’s birthday. I won’t say how old he is for fear of embarrassing him, but he had a good time.

Our party of 12 had the “Oak Room” at the rear of the building, to ourselves. According to Mrs PBT’s, who has lived in Tonbridge all her life, this part of the hotel was once a separate business, and traded as a lady’s hairdressers during the 60’s & 70’s. It is sited at a slightly lower level from the main part of the hotel.

We had a few drinks, before sitting down to enjoy a rather nice meal. Shepherd Neame Spitfire and Harvey’s Sussex Best were the cask offerings, so I naturally opted for a pint of the latter. It was in good form, so I scored it at 3.0 NBSS however,  once the food arrived, I switched to wine.

My sea-bream in cream sauce, with potatoes and vegetables was excellent, and Matthew’s steak & ale pie, with chips, also looked good; especially as it was a “proper pie”. The meal was also a good opportunity to catch up with friends, discuss what we’d all been up to and just generally while away a pleasant mid-November afternoon.

We drifted off towards the end of the afternoon; probably once all the bottles of wine had been exhausted. Before leaving, a few of us had a chat to the manager who had been personally looking after our group, and or reason for doing so was because a cloud hangs over the Rose & Crown’s future at the moment, as I am about to explain.

Back in the summer, the hotel’s current owners placed the Rose & Crown on the market, with an asking price of £3 million. None of us are privy to why the business is up for sale, and according to the agent’s website the current turn-over is over £1.2 million. Whatever the reason in these straightened times it is worrying for a town like Tonbridge to face losing its principal hotel.

A possible clue for the sale might lie with a statement on the agent’s site, which says, “The business is mainly staff run with a relatively 'hands off' owner, allowing it to appeal to a staff/management run format, but is also suitable for a more 'hands on' owner”.

The current manager seems very much a “hands-on” person, and is certainly very enthusiastic. He explained he is relatively new to the Rose & Crown, having worked previously for a number of top-notch London hotels. He did tell us that the owners are extremely keen for the business to remain a hotel, rather than being turned into apartments or suffer the indignity of becoming an old-people’s home, so fingers crossed, all round.

As I said at the beginning, you can judge a provincial town by its principal hotel and for Tonbridge to lose such a prestigious, attractive and historic old building, would be a real tragedy.