This particular Premier Inn is situated about two miles north of Hereford city centre, at a junction on the main north-south (A49) and east-west (A4103) trunk roads, in what used to be the rural village of Holmer but has now been subsumed by the Cathedral City's urban and industrial sprawl. Followers of the Turf will probably know already that this budget hotel is situated right next to Hereford Racecourse, which explains why the adjacent, former Beefeater restaurant where guests now enjoy their continental and/or cooked breakfasts is called "The Starting Gate". Needless to say, given its location, the hotel has a large car park, albeit one containing some rather large potholes, and is also situated on a road 'bus route to and from the city centre. The walk from the hotel to Hereford Cathedral, which is downhill all the way, takes about forty minutes. The check-in process was smooth and efficient whilst my room (No. 34) was large, clean and spacious with a comfortable double bed and a wet room containing a combined bath/shower as well as a washbasin and a lavatory. With lots of hot water when needed! I opted for the free wireless internet access option which gave download speeds of 0.9 Mbps, upload speeds of 0.3 Mbps and a Latency of 62 ms respectively. There was a captive hair drier and a fan in my bedroom as well as the usual hospitality tray containing a kettle and sachets of coffee, tea, sugar and milk but - alas - no biscuits. The adjacent Beefeater restaurant had closed down a couple of days before my visit but was available to hotel guests for their standard Premier Inn hot or cold breakfasts served between 06:30-11:30 on weekdays and between 07:00-11:00 at weekends. The restaurant was also open for dinner on the Thursday evening, when a very limited menu of fish & chips, chicken curry or pizza was available, but was closed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings (when, fortunately, I had no need of it). The bar in the former Beefeater restaurant was also open for hotel guests, serving a limited but acceptable range of beers, wines and spirits. I slept well enough during my four-night stay as the room was quiet and, incidentally, lacking air conditioning. The hardworking staff were efficient, friendly and helpful at all times. There was no 2-Pin electric shaver socket in the wet room but there were plenty of 240 Volt 3-Pin outlets in the bed room. The small, wall-mounted, flatscreen television worked as expected, with a somewhat limited number of channels, but all attempts to connect it to my HD camcorder via an HDMI wall socket proved unsuccessful. I enjoyed my stay at Holmer in connection with the 2024 Hereford Beer, Cider and Perry Festival and would happily stay here again next year, by when the former Beefeater restaurant will surely have more staff and a wider range of menu options for dinner.
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