Ox Pasture Hall, Scarborough: Review

About a month ago, I was invited to stay at the Ox Pasture Hall hotel just outside Scarborough for an evening of good food, a bit of relaxation and just getting away for a night. We decided to book ourselves in to stay the night on Thursday 23rd October after a day at work, then we would both take Friday off (and Ben took Saturday off too, a proper weekend!) to wander around Whitby and Scarborough a bit. Despite both of us only living about 25 miles from Scarborough for pretty much our whole lives, we hadn’t heard of Ox Pasture Hall, although my mum had as she’d been to a memorial service there once. The hotel is branded as a Country House Hotel offering relaxation and luxury, and that it did! It is actually constructed in an old farmhouse and its buildings, which give it fantastic character, especially with the courtyards and grounds.
We arrived after the sun had set, so unfortunately couldn’t see a great deal of the hotel or its surroundings when we arrived, aside from the trees on either side of a steep valley that we meandered up to reach it. The hotel is situated in the North York Moors National Park, although the surroundings to me don’t scream North York Moors as I know them – more woodland and fields, but still beautiful, especially in autumn when we visited. We were welcomed in at the reception warmly then led to our room, the Filey Suite – it seems that all the suites were named after local areas which is a lovely touch – through a couple of courtyards, with the restaurant and cosy lounge pointed out on our way through.


As I said, we were allocated a gorgeous suite, complete with a spacious bedroom, lounge area and beautiful bathroom. We were both really pleased to spot the king size bed (which was wide enough to lay the opposite way around on!) and the huge bath, complete with the most amazing waterfall taps! I’ve always wanted to try those out but never had a chance – it’s the small things really! We’d booked ourselves in for our evening meal about an hour later, so decided to get some use out of the bath – it actually turned out to be basically the same bath we have at home (aside from the waterfall taps!) but longer – I tested this by balancing my head where I would when I read in the bath, and my toes only just reached the far end, impressive!! The shower was also lovely – it had a huge shower head and a big cubicle that was open at the front, plenty of room to splash around!
There were even small details in the room that made all the difference, for example, the pictured Gilchrist & Soames mini shampoo, body wash and body lotion, as well as cotton balls, a fully stocked drinks tray and a bottle each of large sparkling and still mineral water. The only thing I’d add is a mini fridge to keep the water (and the wine that we didn’t finish at our meal!) cool in – but then again, these can be noisy.



I’m going to talk about our meal and breakfast in another post, because that was something else altogether (spoiler: amazing!!). We didn’t actually spend a very long time at the hotel, having arrived after dark then leaving shortly after breakfast in the morning to make the most of a nice day at the coast, but we did wander around the grounds. The hotel does offer weddings and is the perfect location for a romantic break away from everyday life – even for us, when we live pretty close by, it felt like we were on a proper holiday.
I also just wanted to include a few pictures of our day out too! We’d planned to go to Scarborough then onto Whitby later, but in the end just headed straight up to Whitby. I’ve spent plenty of time in Whitby before in pretty much every season, since it’s really our local seaside town (aside from Scarborough) and is much more quaint and interesting I think. I hadn’t climbed the infamous 199 steps up to St Marys Church and Whitby Abbey for a few years though, so I decided it was time to do it again, and just to check that there were still 199 of them. As you’ve probably guessed, there were! And it was such a lovely day that the roll neck dress I decided to wear, plus a scarf and fur collared coat (seriously, my favourite thing to wear ever right now!), were far too much for all that! I was at the time reading a book set at Whitby Abbey (not Dracula, although I do love that too!), so really wanted to get up there and have another look. We also spent some time shopping the fabric options at Boyes (where I picked up the tartan for this dress) and a while in the amusements at the 2p slot machines – always fun! I think I possibly wasted about £6 in 2ps in there, but never mind – I only left because we were running out of time in the car park!
So just to finish off this post, here are a few pictures of Whitby including the view down from St Marys church, the view from down below up to the Abbey, a building in the Old Town decorated for Halloween, and finally our view on the way down over the Moors looking towards Fylingdales.
So stay tuned for the next installation of our weekend away in Scarborough, which is basically just going to be food, food and more food…