Stayed at the Charlesmark in May 2008 for 2 nights, and I had a mixed experience.

I arrived early (my fault) and my room wasn't ready. The receptionist checked for any available rooms but said the only one she had was near the bar and I had asked for a quiet one - top marks for knowing my request and acting on it. She said she'd ring me when my room was ready and took my mobile phone number - great. Unfortunately she never did ring, so that was a shame and left me wandering around the city for longer than I needed to, but not a big deal and she did store my luggage.

I returned later that afternoon and they'd already moved my bags from their store up to my room - fantastic service! The room was very nice, wonderfully clean & beautifully decorated, with great attention to detail. Not a massive room, but perfectly fine - don't listen to the people whining about tiny tiny rooms and poor decoration, unless you're planning on bringing more than a couple of suitcases when it might get crowded.

However, despite being given a "quiet" room overlooking an outdoor void / shaft surrounded by brick walls, I was repeatedly woken all night by a huge fan at the bottom of this void that kept starting up, running for 10 minutes and then shutting down again. Every time it restarted (regularly, roughly every 30 minutes) there was a large bang before the loud whirring started. I could have slept through the whirring, but the bang woke me up every time all night. There are several other rooms overlooking this fan, so I can't see how anybody in any of them could have got much sleep either.

I complained the next morning and got moved to another room, which was actually bigger and nicer than the first, but at the front of the hotel. This was a bit noisier than I would have liked (you overlook the main road) but at least it quietened down later at night, unlike the fan.

So what to conclude? I really liked the style of the hotel, the food downstairs from the Thai restaurant was excellent, the rooms were great and it's very good value. I was slightly annoyed that I ordered a gin and tonic from the bar and it was completely flat - when I called the waitress over she immediately asked if it was flat...so why did she give it to me? She replaced it very politely, with a fractionally less flat G&T, but it was still far from sparkling.

So I'm giving the Charlesmark an average rating because I really wouldn't go back there because I couldn't be sure I'd get any sleep. It's a real shame, as someone has obviously put a lot of effort into making it a stylish place to stay and the location is pretty good.