Mercure Barnsley Tankersley Manor – Low Beams, Rusty Dreams & Pancake Machines
- Nigel Slippers
- Sep 15, 2025
- 4 min read
Accor advertises Tankersley Manor as a “refurbished historic retreat blending modern comfort with heritage character.” Translation: Thatcher-era furniture, cracks in the wall big enough to swallow Barnsley, and corridors designed to concuss you before bed. Sure, it’s a 17th-century manor, but so is Dracula’s castle, and at least he serves coffee with caffeine. Compared to the Mercure Doncaster Horse & Horror Hash Browns, Tankersley is slightly less apocalyptic — but only because there’s a pancake machine.
🛎️ Check-In Hokey-Cokey
The first thing that greeted me wasn’t staff, nor the smell of “heritage character” carpets — it was a fully decorated Christmas tree. In September. Adorned with Mexican ornaments. No explanation, no context, just festive confusion. I half-expected Santa to pop out and offer me a sombrero.
Reception itself was smooth, suspiciously so. No ParkingEye fines, no demand for my car registration — perhaps I’d wandered into a parallel universe where hotels don’t actively hunt guests’ wallets. Then came the loyalty upgrade circus:
“You booked a twin, so I can only upgrade you… to another twin.”
This logic felt imported directly from the Mercure Newcastle Washington, where staff treated room allocations like Sudoku puzzles. Eventually, I secured a double room, though it felt like I’d negotiated peace at the UN. To be fair, the staff were friendly, which already puts them leagues ahead of most.
🚪 Corridors of Concussion
The corridors were an endurance event. Brown carpets with stains that told the life story of every pint ever spilled. Lighting dimmer than a half-charged torch. And then the beams — low, medieval wooden traps that forced guests into daily limbo competitions. Walk upright? Forget it. Every journey to the bedroom doubled as an NHS head injury trial.
It was like a mashup of National Trust heritage and student digs, minus the charm.
🪑 Thatcher’s Show Home
Step inside: décor straight from the late 80s, when oak veneer was king and floral carpets were a war crime. A Corby 7700 trouser press glared from the corner, daring me to relive 1987’s creased polyester nightmares. Beneath the window, a crack so wide it looked ready to star in Channel 5’s When Buildings Collapse.
Credit where it’s due: the bed was actually comfy. Two modern aircon units, both remote-controlled — practically NASA tech for a Mercure. The real star? The hangers. Two plush purple cushion jobs and four solid wooden legends. Shame about the kettle, which looked like it had been recovered from the Titanic. And yes, the fancy coffee machine stocked exclusively with decaf pods. Coffee without caffeine is just hot brown depression.
🚿 Rust in Peace
If you’ve ever wondered what a bathroom would look like after decades of passive-aggressive neglect, Tankersley has the answer. Mould in the shower grout, cracked tiles spider-webbing across the walls, fluff forming its own civilisation inside the extractor fan, and a radiator slowly rusting into oblivion.
Yes, there was both a bath and a separate shower, but calling that a “feature” is like bragging about having two different kinds of plague. Even the Elemental Herbology bottles seemed embarrassed to be there, standing in the corner like hostages. Honestly, it made the Gosforth Park ironing board of doom look positively reassuring.
☕ Decaf Crimes & Kettle Archaeology
The kettle, once opened, revealed rust, scale, and what might have been the remains of an old teabag colony. Archaeologists could have written a thesis on it. I turned to the gleaming coffee machine for salvation, only to find it stocked exclusively with decaf. Four pods, all caffeine-free. This wasn’t coffee — this was betrayal.
The desk was big but hideous, the kind you inherit from a bankrupt solicitor’s office. Somewhere, the premium hangers mocked me: “We can hold your coat, but we can’t hold your sanity.”
🍕 Pizza, Pints & Small Miracles
To my astonishment, the bar accepted my free drinks voucher for a Guinness. Not only that — it arrived in a proper Guinness glass. A rare victory in the ongoing Great Guinness Glass Audit™. Compared to most Accor attempts, this was a Michelangelo masterpiece.
Dinner? A spicy pepperoni pizza that arrived quickly, tasted decent, and didn’t set off a fire alarm. For a moment, Tankersley flirted with competence.
🍳 Pancake Wizardry
Breakfast was a shocker — in a good way. Fried eggs, beans, sausage: tasty, hot, and edible, which immediately placed it above Doncaster’s grease festival. But the pièce de résistance was the pancake machine. Push a button, watch the batter glide along a conveyor belt, and pop — pancakes on demand. Like the toaster’s flashier cousin, but with theatre.
I watched in awe, like a child at Disneyland, mesmerised by the magic. Pancake sorcery: the single best reason to stay.
📶 Wi-Fi That Works (for Once)
94 down / 69 up — fast enough to stream Netflix, upload trauma photos of the bathroom, and check the structural integrity of that wall crack in real time. For once, no complaints.
📝 Final Thoughts
Mercure Tankersley Manor is the ultimate paradox. The staff were friendly, the pizza tasty, the Guinness poured correctly, and the pancake machine downright magical. But the bathroom is auditioning for Silent Witness, the corridors are an obstacle course of beams and stains, and the coffee situation deserves an international tribunal.
It’s better than Doncaster (because food exists), worse than Newcastle Washington (at least you could walk upright), and only saved from Gosforth-level disaster by pancake sorcery.
⭐️⭐️⭐️½ – A crack in the wall, a pancake in the hand, and a Christmas tree in September.
Curious how this hotel stacks up against the rest? 👉 See the full Accor-ometer: Beds, Beers & Bad Decisions.
That wall crack beneath the window genuinely made me laugh. Nothing screams restful night’s sleep like lying in bed wondering if gravity is about to win. ‘Heritage character,’ they’ll say, while handing you a hard hat at check-in. At least the staff were friendly, though — more than can be said for Gosforth Park’s infamous ironing board massacre. Between rusty radiators, crumbling walls, and pancake sorcery, Tankersley sounds like the sort of place where you wake up confused, full, and possibly concussed. Which, let’s face it, is what Mercure do best.
I had to laugh at the corridor description. Ducking under beams every few steps? It’s less a hotel, more a medieval assault course. Imagine checking in for a romantic weekend and leaving with whiplash, concussion, and a newfound respect for chiropractors. And those brown carpets with stains telling ‘the life story of every pint ever spilled’… poetic, really. If Doncaster gave us horse-adjacent horror, Tankersley gives us concussion chic. I can already hear the TripAdvisor defence: ‘it’s heritage character!’ Yes, so was the Black Death, but we don’t build hotels around that either.
Nothing says luxury like a kettle that doubles as an archaeological dig site. Rust, scale, and unidentified life forms? Delicious. Honestly, Tankersley should market it as a detox cleanse — boil water, pour out the coppery sludge, and call it ‘Yorkshire spa tea’. I do admire the bravery of giving you a coffee machine and then supplying only decaf pods. It’s like offering someone champagne and handing them sparkling tap water. Still, at least you got Guinness in the correct glass — I nearly fainted reading that. A miracle in Barnsley indeed.
Oh Nigel, you’ve sold me on this ‘pancake wizardry’. I’d book Tankersley tomorrow just to stand in front of that conveyor belt like a child at Disneyland, only I’d probably end up blocking it and cause a pancake traffic jam. Also, a Christmas tree in September? I’ve only just packed away last year’s tinsel. If this is Accor’s idea of festive spirit, I dread to think what the Easter décor will be — probably mouldy hot cross buns nailed to the bathroom radiator.