Charlton Hall Estate

After eating numerous times at The Tempus we eagerly booked for Christmas Day lunch as the menu looked delicious and was fairly priced for a Christmas Day fayre. On arrival, we were warmly greeted by various staff members with a welcome drink and Christmas cheer. The restaurant had a cosy atmosphere and although busy with bookings, we were constantly attended to throughout the afternoon. As a party of 4 we all had different course choices however, we all thoroughly enjoyed the food. The veloute and roast turkey with lashings of the most devine gravy, were both exceptional and the portion sizes were extremely generous. We had super service throughout our afternoon albeit slower than previous visits but to be expected, as we appreciated not being rushed with it being Christmas Day. All in all we had a brilliant Christmas Day lunch and we found it to be excellent value for money and furthermore, we have already enquired about booking for next year. A huge thank you to the staff at The Tempus for their care and attention in making our Christmas Day lunch a special experience.

Northumberland has been crying out for somewhere like this for a while. A funky and quirky renovation/new build attractive to those looking for modern creature comforts in a rural setting. We arrived at night to a beautifully lit set of buildings spread across sprawling grounds. The set up is pretty slick with staff attentive and welcoming. We did worry it would only be for weddings and that on a cool late November evening we would be the only ones there. It was, however, buzzing with people of all ages. Young couples, family groups all interspersed around the many seating and dining areas (including outside Tipi with live music, pizza van and open fire pits!). Our room (Pole Barn 7) was in the eves of a converted barn accessed from external stairs. We were not shown to our room, something I would have expected but wasnt fussed about. We had to find it from the car park in the dark. The room was, however, brilliant. Lovely and cosy (warm) and very private. Could do with a full length mirror (compaint from my wife). We could have stayed there all night but ventured to the Tipi (full, no seats....so we went to the bar). We dined in the main restaurant and couldnt fault the food (medium sized menu of well prepared mainly local dishes, nothing too flash but very tasty). My only compaint might be that the service was a little too quick and we had finished within an hour. We had a lovely peaceful night followed by an excellent breakfast the next day. Our only minor complaint was that (again) the food came too quickly (halfway through cereal when the hot food arrived) and that the only coffee option was filter (no lattes etc as it would mess with the service times...so we were told). All in all a magnificent one night stay. Would love return. Would have been 5/5 had it not been for a couple of minor service issues.

As a family we went to the Alpine Tipi, in the grounds of the Tempus hotel. The setting is stunning and walking in I had great expectations. The Tipi was full , not a huge number of tables inside the tent but lots available outside. We were lucky for the end of November it wasn’t freezing, as none of the outside tables were near any fires and there wasn’t a lot of rugs available. There was a huge queue at the bar with just 2 bar attendants and one was very busy running constantly from the bar to the outside van with the food orders. The staff were very pleasant but very overwhelmed. We ordered food and we were informed there was a wait of 30 minutes which turned into an hour. When the food eventually arrived it wasn’t very hot and my katsu turkey and fries arrived with no katsu sauce. I went back to the van and asked for the sauce, it was poured out of a large Tupperware container straight onto the fries and turkey. The sauce was cold , it looked like green dishwater and had no flavour. When we were paying hotel prices for the drinks and food I was expecting something better. Overall a disappointment.