Filling up on more afternoon tea

ANOTHER afternoon tea beckoned. And this time to Holme Lacey House in Herefordshire. It started off badly when the receptionist was quite rude to my mum and I, but once over that little hiccough the staff were friendly.

We were seated in a very quiet room overlooking the grounds and OAPs sipping on drinks. There was no atmosphere and some music would have been appreciated, as there was only one other couple and we felt we were whispering.

The waitress told us the chef was preparing our afternoon tea but when it came out it had clearly been in the fridge, which was fine, but felt it was an odd thing to say.

But as for the afternoon tea, it was really good. There was a selection of sandwiches from smoked salmon, egg mayo, cucumber and cream cheese and ham and mustard. The ingredients were all a good quality and there were five fingers each, which is more than you would usually expect.

There were also six cakes- a mixture of pastries, carrot cake and sponge and they were all really good- no dry cakes here. An odd addition was two small cups of raspberry liqueur with a splodge of whipped double cream on top. It was so rich and rather odd! I like the liqueur but not with the cream.

The scones were really big and served with Tiptree jam and clotted cream, which was delicious.

And then, as if this wasn’t enough, we were given strawberries and yet more cream.

We were stuffed and they kindly packed the cakes up for us to take away, which was very much appreciated.

We finished the visit with a walk around the nice grounds. This is £35 per couple, which considering how much you get seems fairly reasonable.