Olivers in Purbeck

Afternoon tea for wife's special birthday. Excellent choices of sandwiches, scones and deserts, accompanied by a nice drop of merlot! Super location and very attentive staff. Ground floor bar and restaurant "spot on" and 4 acres of gardens beautifully maintained.

Cream tea. It was amazing, lovely setting, great service, delicious tea. Then a stroll around the gardens. Had a brilliant afternoon shared with a good friend

The cost for a night set my expectations, the hotel if fine, breakfast good, bed excellent - overall, not great value for what you pay

Delightful historic hotel with clean comfortable rooms. Fabrics are high quality with crisp linen. Food is delicious and beautifully presented. Restaurant staff are first class and made me feel looked after. Rooms are small and pleasant. Be prepared, this isn't a large, urban purpose built hotel with large rooms. It is quirky and classical. Unusual hotel because they don't always take people wandering in without a booking for coffee or drinks if they are full with hotel guests. Especially so since the pandemic when they are more careful about hygiene. My stay was fabulous. I stayed 3 nights and am looking forward to staying again soon.

We recently stayed at the Priory Hotel and can honestly say that from the moment we arrived to the time we left it truly was amazing. Our room was beautiful. All the staff were friendly, accommodating and nothing was too much trouble. We had dinner and breakfast in the restaurant and the food was impeccable. If you have not been to The Priory Hotel - you truly need to!!

Rude sign on door basically saying don’t come in unless you’re staying here! Very rude employee at reception and in hotel. Asked if we could stay and order drinks etc but we’re told “no you can’t” and “we are in the middle of lunch service”. We left immediately. What a pretentious venue, will never bother to go back…. Not sure who they thought they were but there were so many lovely places with a friendly welcome and much more inviting. After reading other reviews, we obviously are not the only ones who were treated so badly.

Popped in here today (for the first time), as we were out walking with the dog, and first impressions were great. It looked fantastic as we approached and the courtyard and entrance are lovely. We asked if we could have a coffee and were abruptly told “no dogs allowed and please leave”! I asked if there was any outside space we could use and were again asked to leave.Slightly surprised, I asked if my heavily pregnant (and very visibly pregnant) wife could use the toilet and were abruptly told that we would have to go back to the foyer and sanitise!I don’t think I’ve been anywhere that has such an unwelcoming feeling. Such a shame as the first impressions are great.We left and went to the Bear Hotel (100 yards away) who were fantastic and extremely welcoming and accommodating.

A beautiful old building with flagstone floors and the ground floor and comfortable lounges. The bedrooms are extremely comfortable and we'll furnished. The evening meal in the glass walled dining room was good but not exceptional. I'm my opinion it did not warrant the very hefty price tag.

I have never been spoken to so rudely in my life until speaking to an old lady on reception at the Priory. Called to arrange for a lunch visit between Monday and Thursday was told "nothing for Monday, bye" went to hang up when I then enquired about Tuesday to Thursday the lady sighed and reluctantly went to check. When I told her it would be for 3 adults and a baby I was told in an incredibly rude manner "no Children are allowed" and then pretty much hung up on me. Shocking! Certainly will be telling all friends and family not to visit or at least until they get some better staff, the lady needs to get taken down a peg... For anyone reading this review we went on to have a lovely lunch at the Granary next door would high recommend they were incredibly nice and the food was great.

room (11) very small for a two night stay, other than a narrow hanging wardrobe no storage space so had to live out of suitcase which then made room even smaller. Room also adjacent to access road to car park so was quite noisy. Staff on arrival were very curt and unwelcoming appeared to look down their noses at us. Small point I know but on attempting to make hot drink there was no milk provided so had to go to reception to obtain some and run the gauntlet of surly staff.That being said the waiting staff in restaurant were very good and breakfast was of a very high quality. Would not recommend this to anyone else.