Special feature: Barton Grange Hotel, UK

I  stayed at  Barton Grange Hotel at the weekend, arguably the best hotel in Preston, Lancashire (UK). Easily accessible from Junction 32 of the M6 motorway, the hotel is just 2 miles from the junction, in the direction of Garstang. It’s an easy place to while away the weekend with ample facilities, good food and, if you’re  still looking for something to occupy yourself,  a garden centre on site to boot. We stayed in a Superior Room which offered ample space for us to properly relax. There wasn’t a great deal of information within the room beyond the room service menu but, after a little exploration, we found the fitness room and swimming pool down on the bottom floor. Throughout our stay we never saw anyone in the gymnasium and had the swimming pool and sauna to ourselves whenever we used it. The relatively new Walled Garden Bistro, situated between the hotel and the garden centre, has been tastefully done and offers good service and food at a fair price. I tried the creamy smoked chicken linguine ( £5.75) – perhaps a little heavy for a starter – and the lamb ‘hot pot’ ( £10.95), a little ambiguously named since it was really a boned shank of lamb with spring onions and mulled red cabbage. If you’re looking for variety during your stay, across the road from the hotel is the Barton Fox, a pub with a good reputation, a varied menu and real log fires. Breakfast in Healey’s Restaurant was a little over-familiar but perfectly acceptable.   All in all, Barton Grange is well worth a visit even if you’re just looking for somewhere to stop for lunch when travelling on the motorway. It would most definitely beat an over-priced service station any day of the week.