Castle Bar

What People are saying

Happy to let people smoke and deal drugs to their guests...

aimeekitty84 on 27/08/2017 22:46

We have stayed here twice before whenever we have had gigs in Camden and Kentish Town area, and it’s always been a comfortable stay. This time however we were very disappointed, and probably won't come back.
First of all we were given a room on the first floor, which is fine and made no difference to us initially. The last two stays we had we were either on the top floor or second floor.
We noticed there was a very large carpet stain on the floor of our room, again, we're not sleeping on the floor so this didn't bother us, but the other rooms we'd stayed in didn't look this dilapidated.
The last two times we have stayed there, there was parking out front for guests, this is still showing on this website and others that parking is available, it’s not. They have turned this area into an outdoor shisha bar (are they still a thing?), bit annoying since we'd already driven 2 hours to get there and now spent another 45 minutes trying to find somewhere to park nearby that we weren't going to get ticketed for.
We were given our keys but not shown to our room, it was lucky that we'd been there before as the doors leading to other rooms aren't labelled, just had to keep opening doors and poking my head in before I worked out where we were staying.
We later went out to our gig and came back to the B&B at around 11:30pm. As it has a bar as well this was open and decided to have a drink. The guy behind the bar, who is the same guy who gave me my keys earlier that day, was in the middle of making our drinks, when about 6 large men walked into the bar and demanded drinks, quite intimidating looking. The guys stopped what he was doing and went straight onto serving them, leaving us waiting for our drinks for another 10 minutes. Bare in mind we were the only customers in there at the time and it wasn’t busy. We then say a few of these men go outside to sit in the shisha bar and a few other went out the “No admittance” door, which leads to the bedrooms.
Once we got our drink I read a sign that said the bar closed at 00:30, which was good as we were feeling tired and wanted to get some sleep before driving back home tomorrow. As we left to go to the rooms, we saw one of the men sat on the sofa in the lobby stare at us, and another man stood at the bottom of the stairs to the rooms, just staring at us. We said ‘excuse me’ and made our way up.
Our block of rooms was opposite the roof access where people can smoke. I went in out room to get dressed whilst my other half went out to smoke a cigarette. There was a man stood in the very corner who then approached my other half and asked if he had a spare cigarette. He apologise and said no. The man then asked if he wanted to buy cannabis from him! Again my other half said no, to which the man got a bit miffed about and stormed off down the stairs.
For the rest for that night, all we could smell was a strong smell of cannabis, and the bar didn’t close until 3:30am. The music was so loud under our room that we didn’t get any sleep until 4am, since every time the bottle got thrown in the bottle bins it was smash (rather than just placing them in there).
I'm not sure whether it's because out last 2 stays were on a weekend and this visit was during the week (Thursday 24th August), but this has really put us off ever coming back here. I as a young woman personally felt venerable leaving the bedroom to go use the shared bathroom whilst there was an intimidating man lurking around watching me go in and out of the toilet. None of these men appeared to be guests and were just looking for people to sell drugs to. Horrible.
We didn’t bother staying for breakfast, and left as soon as we could.

Disgustingly misrepresented by Expedia with false pictures

hayley b on 24/07/2017 23:21

Reserved room thru Expedia bc of the ratings and pictures. Outside was run down surrounded by broken wood & glass. Carpet in room was stained, ripped. Holes in furniture and walls.
Billed under closed resteraunt.

Modest but right for us

TCHRSiena on 03/07/2017 14:01

We stayed 3 nights in this hotel in June 2017. The owners (recently arrived) were very friendly and helpful with suiting our needs. We wanted to save money and chose the hotel knowing it was very modest - shared bathroom, bit of a commute to the sights. We were quite happy, having gone into this without expecting more than we got. The room was very simple, the beds were ok, a bit soft, the wifi was good and free, the commute was 20-25 min but easy (with an oyster card and a 7 min walk). The breakfast was simple but plentiful, the shared bathroom fine for us as we are early risers and the others were sleeping. The room was pretty quiet - if you stay on a weekend there can be some noise as they have bands at the pub below.

Convenient, clean, and cheap--don't expect fancy for this price

An_archivist on 02/07/2017 16:07

A good place to stay for a couple of nights, super value, not at all luxurious. We wanted to spend more on other things, so we were pleased that the Castle Bar was inexpensive, and we didn't mind that it's a bit run-down.

It's in a safe residential neighborhood, absolutely convenient to public transit, both Tube and buses, with a liquor store, Indian takeaway food, and grocery store/bodega right across the street. The building is definitely on the worn side, but there are some pleasant outdoor areas on the ground floor and upstairs deck, and while we didn't hang out there, the downstairs pub looked inviting.

We had two twin beds with a shared bath. While the bathroom and the linens were perfectly clean, the mattresses have seen better days. We were happy about the blackout shades and the big windows, and we had a fridge, electric teapot, television and fan in our large room. We had the continental breakfast (other options were the English breakfast or an omelet). The coffee was excellent.

Expect city noise: plenty of traffic and sirens, and a bar downstairs. Football matches meant cheering some nights, and a band played another night, not especially late (the music sounded good, but people trying to sleep might not think so).

Perfect for a brief sisterly holiday: excellent value, clean, safe and cheap, with friendly and helpful hosts--but don't expect anything approaching grandeur. I wish these guys the very best.

Where not to stay!

RMPerks on 25/05/2017 16:59

B&B staff also run the bar. Rooms were substandard, tatty carpet, cracks in walls. Floors and especially stairs had spots that gave way when walked on. First floor shower was hideous. Cold drip of water instead of an actual shower. Inclusive breakfast was comical. Petrified bacon, tiny sausage, and one egg to go with cold toast and nasty tasting beans. Coffee was tepid with little more heat in it than the ice cold shower. The only things that were clean were the sheets and towels. To bad the bed was bad and the shower was unusable! For £80 per night, I expect a shower without someone's manky toenail clippers in it!!! Staff also have many problems with speaking English...as in they don't!