Dinner venue between Guildford, Brighton and Canterbury

May 30, 2006 2:50 AM

Suitable venue for a working dinner, delegates from Canterbury, Brighton, Guildford, where to go?? The M25 /M23 junction? UK mefites, Urgent help needed! More inside....

I need a convenient venue to bring together a group of 12-14 for an important working dinner on June 8th for about 4 hours. We need this to be a private room with about 4 flipcharts from 7pm. People are coming from Canterbury, Brighton, Guildford, so I've googled and all I come up with are souless, generic hotel facilties where they want to charge (naturally) conference rates, e.g £250 for the room, £15 per flip chart, £50 plus per head for dinner(ex VAT). Thats the average. If we have to pay that, fine, but I'm sure there must be a nice boutique hotel in this area with the facilties I need. I'm not from the UK so I don't know the area well, I've never had to organise anything like this so I don't know if there are any websites to help. Any ideas?

posted by Wilder to grab bag (9 comments total)

The Nutfield Priory wouldn’t be too much of a stretch from all three places & is supposed to be very nice (albit pricey) though I’ve not been there myself & can’t vouch for it personally.
posted by misteraitch at 3:26 AM on May 30, 2006

We used a hotel up at Richmond upon Thames once that was perfectly acceptable... 99% sure it was this one. However, the reviews here are lukewarm, so YMMV.
posted by Leon at 4:24 AM on May 30, 2006

How about the Hotel du Vin in Tunbridge Wells?
posted by janecr at 5:33 AM on May 30, 2006

As someone who travels from Brighton to the M23/M25 junction every day & works with people who come from Kent & Surrey I'd offer an alternative: Central London - it's the most convenient.

From about 5pm every evening various parts of the southern M25 grind to a halt and anyone coming from any of the three places you mention won't have much fun driving.

However, all three towns have fast direct rail links to central london. Brighton (0h49m) & Canterbury (1h30) go to Victoria & Guildford (0h 40m) goes to Waterloo. Both stations are right in the middle of town so you'll have a pick of decent venues. You could even look at museums/galleries etc.
posted by i_cola at 5:47 AM on May 30, 2006

National Rail web site with timetables.
posted by i_cola at 5:48 AM on May 30, 2006

i_cola, you make an excellent point. Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Hotel du Vin in Tunbridge Wells is wonderful but the room sizes don't suit. Nutfield Priory looks promising. The only downside I can see in a central London location is that a private room for about 14 with flip chart etc., might be quite expensive, but I will look into this.
posted by Wilder at 6:25 AM on May 30, 2006

Got caught in 2 traffic jams on the way home tonight including he usual M23/M25 junction snarl up ;-)
posted by i_cola at 1:10 PM on May 30, 2006

Thanks to your tip i_cola the whole thing just got re- thunk!! ;-)

It would have been a nightmare, particularly at this meeting, if the participants were already in road rage to start.
So we're now looking at a central London venue.
Thanks everyone!
posted by Wilder at 1:01 AM on May 31, 2006

we went to Sugar reef. Perfect location. We took the private dining room and were only changed £25 per head for a good three-course meal. No room hire charges.
posted by Wilder at 4:13 AM on June 29, 2006