Birmingham hotel review: Inside High Field Town House in Edgbaston

The Inspector calls at a ‘town house’ hotel in Birmingham, but laments that it’s a ‘soulless experience’ in a building that ‘really should be a dental practice or accountant firm HQ’

  • The Inspector checks into High Field Town House in Edgbaston 
  • He likes his ‘bright and cheerful’ bedroom and the ‘comfortable bed’ 
  • But when he arrives for breakfast only a takeaway coffee is available 
  • And the High Field restaurant serves a burger ‘with the juice syphoned out’


‘Town House’ is a new genre of hotel. Or at least, it thinks it is. Actually there are a few plush ones in London but you would be hard-pressed to notice that they are any different from traditional hotels.

Not so at the High Field Town House — part of the Peach Group — in a residential area of Edgbaston in Birmingham, where you need not have any contact whatsoever with anyone running the place or, indeed, anyone who works there.

As a result, it’s a soulless experience best suited either to star-crossed lovers who absolutely must not be recognised or gangsters on the run.

Pictured is the exterior of High Field Town House, which the Inspector says ‘should really be a dental practice or the headquarters of a provincial firm of accountants’

Once you have made the booking, a door code is emailed to you. This allows you to enter the white, double-fronted Victorian house, which should really be a dental practice or the headquarters of a provincial firm of accountants — and then you use the same code again to access your room.

Ours faces the front of the building, overlooking the road and car park. It has a free-standing bath in the bay window, which appears promising, but the windows are all hermetically sealed and the wooden door leading to the head accountant’s office (sorry, the bathroom) really does not belong in a bedroom.

Otherwise, it is bright and cheerful, with a comfortable bed, conveniently large wardrobe and snazzy espresso machine. Downstairs, there is a lobby area with a big fridge from which you can help yourself to milk. There’s also a desk with a computer on it but it looks ornamental rather that practical.

The High Field bar and restaurant is next door. We have burgers that have had all the juice syphoned out of them.

High Field Town House - part of the Peach Group - is located in Edgbaston in Birmingham

High Field Town House – part of the Peach Group – is located in Edgbaston in Birmingham

This is where you can eat breakfast from 7.30am. Or so it says in the directory — but when we turn up at 7.35am we are offered a takeaway coffee and nothing more.

‘We should be open properly by 8am,’ says a sleepy young man.

It’s the ‘should’ that makes us say farewell to the High Field Town House — although, of course, there is no one to whom we can address our farewells.

TRAVEL FACTS 

The High Field Town House, 22 Highfield Road, Birmingham, B15 3DP. Doubles from £127. For more information call 0121 6476466 or visit highfieldtownhouse.co.uk. 

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