Like others I had booked this hotel before reading the reviews. I seriously considered cancelling but no other places were available (4th to 6th april 2006). Well it was fine. I had no problems. The room was large, clean and had almost everything I needed. The breakfast was lovely - kept me going for quite a while. There was a bar downstairs with log fire and in warmer weather you can drink at the tables outside. It's right beside the river Avon. My only problem was the lack of TV channels - only 4!! One website said it had satellite TV - it doesn't!!

We stayed for 2 nights at the Swan in the very pretty town of Bradford on Avon. On the plus side the hotel and bedrooms were clean. On the minus side the whole hotel was very run down and dreary.The breakfast was adequate and the evening meal basic. It would have been better if they had hot plates to serve the meal on as it got cold very quickly. There was no warm atmosphere. The whole hotel was cold and I was so cold in the bedroom that I went and asked what time the heating went on and to his credit he did put it on but that was after 6pm. This happened the next day as well. Although the bedroom was comfortable the almost black curtains and bedcover didnt help. The fan heater in the bedroom didnt work and I did report it. There seemed to be very few staff and the (very efficient) man on reception seemed to be doing all the jobs. We won't be using this hotel again.

Myself and three friends decided to go to The Swan Hotel for lunch and sat in the rear courtyard after clearing away the dirty glassware from the tables we went to the bar for drinks and menus, a waiter came to our table with a wine bottle witha number on it and we asked if we could order our food, after he had been gone about ten minutes another waiter came to tell us that they didnot have any mash potato as the chef had not prepared any that day, my friend then choose something else as the sausage and mash would not be right without the mash! after waiting another thirty minutes a waiter came out with some food, he put the food on our table but we told him its wasn't what we had ordered and he said it was, another waiter came and told him it wasn't our order and they took it away, five minutes later the same waiter brought just me some food and five minutes later after I had started knibbling he took it off me as it was not meant for me even though I had ordered it, by now we are getting a bit fed up, eventually our food came "Hurrah" but alas it was awful, one dish was so overcooked that it wasnt chewable, another dish Cod and Chips with mushy peas had been deep fried that long that the batter was chocolate coloured, my steak sandwich with home-made crisps was dry no butter and the bread was stale, my partners sausages had been deep fried to death in a stale baguette, we called over the waiter and showed him our food he smiled and we asked him if he thought is was okay and he said no we asked him if he would pay for that standard of food and he said no, we told him we thought it was disgusting and inedible and he said "what ever " he then proceeded to take all our plates away without one word of an appology we had wasted a whole hour by this time and still had no lunch, the staff where rude to the point of dissinterest and just didnt care about the standards or how customers were leaving so disgruntled. I will be contacting the owner as I have serious resevations about the kitchens cleanliness and standards after seeing our food looking so grim

Fortunately, we'd booked the Swan before I read the reviews on TripAdvisor. It was thus with some trepidation that I approached the place but fortunately my fears were completely unjustified. At eighty pounds, our room wasn't the cheapest in the area, but I've certainly paid much more and got less. From start to finish the staff were friendly and helpful: at the beginning there had been a mistake in our e-booking, which the receptionist firmly blamed on the booking system and remedied immediately with good humour. The room was comfortable and was laid out so that it was easy for me to work without getting in my wife's way. We had intended going out for a meal, but it was raining quite hard so, without warning and only half an hour before the official end of food orders, we asked for a table in the restaurant. I've spent enough time on the other side of the fence to know how unpopular we may have been, but there was no sign of this and no pressure from our server - both the meal and the wine were good and better value for money than the other proper restaurants in town, being priced at about the going rate for an equivalent pub meal. Our experience goes to show either that a couple of reviewers can catch the place on a bad day, or that we caught them on a good one - we've decided to use the place again and I'll report back after that.