Not the end of a fairytale venue, (yay!)

Really pleased to see that this venue has been taken over by new management and is not going to be pulled down. It was an incredibly photogenic venue and I have very happy memories of Beth and Kevin’s wedding there, so long may it thrive! — I just wanted to say how sad I was to read that The Node, Codicote, is being pulled down. It has been sold to a big corporation and rumours have it is going to be destroyed. I photographed Beth’s wedding there last April and as you can see it’s a pretty magical place. http://fionacampbell.biz/blog/2011/06/17/love-in-april/It’s pretty rough around the edges, but the staff were so positive and did their utmost to contribute to Beth and Kevin’s wedding. The couple didn’t have a massive budget and I think they did very well to get such a fairytale venue. Probably it could be refurbished and then it would be another uber glamorous five star hotel. But then Beth wouldn’t have been able to get married there.I think there are various lessons here; the first is don’t trust everything you read on TripAdvisor. The Node had 3 x one star reviews, and one very irate former member of staff believed that may have been what killed it. But also, we need to be reasonable that if we don’t pay five star prices we can’t expect five star treatment. I don’t know the ins and outs of The Node’s business plan – perhaps it had some flaws, but I do know that, mostly, you get what you pay for. So don’t complain on Trip Advisor if you paid for a b and b and got to stay in a castle. Because otherwise next time the castle will be gone and you’ll have to put up with the B and B!Hopefully if enough people protest it will be saved. It has something like a 1000 years of history, even if the water gardens do need restoring and someone has whitewashed the walls badly. Meanwhile enjoy these pictures.