We have just stayed overnight at The Retreat. We were made to feel very welcome. I liked the little touches such as in the information book in the room it gave a brief history of the house and who it had belonged to in the past. The rooms were very comfortable and very clean. Mark cooks a fantastic breakfast, We would deffinetly stay there again.

Loved everything about it, The friendliness of Mark and Sian, the rooms, the position of the Retreat was ideal for our visit.

Lovely guesthouse with great hospitality. Beautiful rooms furnished to a magnificent standard. Will definitely return for a longer weekend with friends. As nice as we have ever stayed in.

Visited Saturday 24th January for one night

My wife and I visit Portsmouth regularly, my wife comes from this area and has family whom we visit at least once per month so we are always looking for somewhere nice to stay.

We have stayed at all the usual suspects, plastic corporate hotels with no atmosphere, style or caring attitudes. So for the last year we have been looking at staying in the smaller more personal establishments, the boutique end of the market, and Portsmouth does have quite a number of these smaller establishments that pride themselves on the quality of service provided.

The Retreat guesthouse has only just come on to our radar, looking for somewhere on the spur of the moment, and fancying a change from the last establishment we have been staying at, I contacted the Retreat and established they had a vacancy for the night we were after. I spoke direct with Sian, one of the joint owner/proprietors of the establishment and she explained where they were situated and the routine for parking etc and though the usual time for checking in is late afternoon they had no problem with us arriving early and checking in as our room was ready. We were able to park directly outside the property, and Mark (the other owner/occupier) issued us with a free visitors car park pass which meant we could park outside in the residents scheme till we left for free.

We were shown to our room (The Franklin Suite) the guest rooms are all on the 1st floor, accessed by a marvellous Victorian staircase. The room was a reasonable size with a king size four poster canopy bed being the central focus. There was a large wardrobe that more than catered for our belongings with plenty of hangers. The wardrobe also contained a variety of glasses and mugs. The bathroom was spotless and made a good effort at combining the classic Victorian with the modern needs of the traveller, two sinks and a whirlpool bath were complimented by a nice hot powerful shower. The room was a nice warm temperature, and this is adjustable by the guests themselves, the room did not contain air conditioning (though this was not a problem in January). On the wall was a large flat screen TV that had the basic 5 channels plus 1 or two freeview channels but not the whole package. This was fine for us as we were not there to watch TV.

Breakfast was taken in the dining room downstairs, and was excellent, we were greeted with a small plate of selected fruits, strawberries, kiwi, raspberries etc. There was a selection of cereals, which were the nicest I have ever tasted (Dorset muesli) and then we were offered a full English breakfast, cooked to order. This accompanied by unlimited amounts of toast, nice coffee and tea made for a great start to the morning.

The retreat does not offer any other meal/refreshments, though the room does have coffee/tea making facilities and glasses. They had no objection to us placing a couple of bottles of wine in their fridge for later. It would be nice if they were able to offer some sort of drink/bar service but as Mark explained with it being such a small establishment (4 rooms) it is hard to justify the additional expense this would generate.

Mark and Sian are extremely knowledgeable about the area surrounding the Retreat and of Portsmouth and Southsea in general, they seem to have a great experience of the nightlife, pubs and restaurants, and are able to recommend dozens of places to eat and drink. The retreat is literally 5 minutes walk from a number of good eating and drinking establishments.

Overall we thoroughly enjoyed our one night stay and we will certainly be back at some stage, though we have already booked accommodation elsewhere for our next stay in February. (look out for our review of the Duke of Buckingham after the 15th of February).

Thank you again Mark and Sian, we both enjoyed the whole experience and certainly enjoyed the conversation that you both have to offer