About our hospitality

What we offer has the unique stamp of us and our different, but complementary personalities, abilities and skills. Tom takes the front-of-house role for arrivals, the service of breakfast and dinner, and departures. Roy’s unchallenged domain is the kitchen, and when the pressures of dinner preparations allow, he enjoys meeting and talking to guests. Our team of staff are proud of their role, and fairly rewarded, so we do not add service, or accept tips.

We are hands-on proprietors and rarely away, except when business or the need for a few days off becomes overwhelming. Our winter closure of six to eight weeks is taken up with maintenance and improvement projects, and allows for a holiday together. Over the years we have got a good feel for what we do best, for what brings guests back and earns their recommendations. To a great extent, this is down to attracting those who enjoy staying in a small hotel, appreciate personal hospitality and a degree of engagement with the proprietors.

We are upfront about the limitations of our energies and time (thus dinner is not served every day); the building (in particular the narrow, steep staircase to the bedroom floors); our location (in a town, with parking on the street); our market (it is simply not feasible to offer a huge range of wines by the glass, for example); and our policy (Lloyds is no-smoking throughout, and we do not have a bar).

Guests from Yorkshire who have stayed regularly over ten years (their son lives in the town) remarked recently that we never seem to stop spending money or working to improve what we offer. Indeed, our motivation is not what the business might justify to an accountant or financial advisor, but what we feel proud to provide for our guests and would wish to experience ourselves.

Part of our style is to get and use guests’ and diners’ names, and unless it will offend, we use your first name. Even with a large group and full restaurant, Tom endeavours to, and usually can remember everyone’s name.

Each winter we write personalised Christmas messages to recent guests, and use the opportunity to send an update Lloyds and information for the coming year. We respect requests not to be on this mailing list. 

In the 19th century, the hotel stretched further down the street (this illustration was reproduced for our 1997 Christmas card, click here for the complete collection of cards). There is an inscription on one of our basement doors, by Daisy Foot, probably a maid, dated 5th September 1875. An advert from around this period, which we have on display in our sitting room, declares that the hotel ‘Boots’ met all trains, and there were 22 bedrooms, each with a coal fire.

Food fit for the Olympian Gods and Goddesses, served in serene and sumptuous surroundings by two very charming gentlemen.

Bruce and Glennys (our neighbours in Llanidloes, of course, but we didn’t bribe them, they are just true enthusiasts!), March 2007