TOM PARKER BOWLES goes to Wetherspoons: We challenged the Claridge’s-loving food critic to a night out at the other end of the scale

It’s just after seven on a frosty Friday night in December, and The Hatchet Inn, just off Newbury in Berkshire’s Market Place, is so rammed there’s barely room to swing a punch, let alone a cat. The queue for the bar is four deep, more good-natured scrum than orderly line, the air thick with the smell of old beer. In one corner, an office party, clad in the now-naff jumpers, tinsel draped disconsolately around their necks, drinking Worthington’s for under £2 a pint, and pitchers of Porn Star Martinis for less than a tenner. Say what you like about Wetherspoon’s, you can’t knock those prices.

All life is here. The solo drinkers, gazing pensively into their pints, ignoring the giggling, prosecco-fuelled cacophony of a dozen girls’ nights out. Serious-looking men pile quid after quid into the vast fruit machines, their eyes glued to the flashing screen as if their very life depends on each spin of the wheel. There are children munching Quavers, and glugging R Whites Lemonade, alongside long-married couples, sitting in terse, uncomfortable silence. Pensioners nursing cups of tea, and big fellas in tight jeans sinking pints of Carling, their biceps unnaturally bulging, their haircuts as harsh as their stare. God, I love a Wetherspoon’s, not in some trite, archly ironic way – rather for providing cheap beer, bottomless coffee, warmth and no-nonsense succour to great swathes of the great British public.

But for once, I’m not here for the beer. I’m about to spend the night in a Wetherspoon’s hotel. Yup, you heard me right, Wetherspoon’s, one of Britain’s biggest pub chains, has 55 hotels across the land, from Inverness to Tavistock, Ruthin to Rochester, Whitby to Warminster. And, in a recent Which? Hotels Survey, they’ve just beaten Premier Inn for customer satisfaction. The vast majority sit above existing Wetherspoon’s pubs and, at The Hatchet Inn, you get a double bed, free wi-fi, en suite bathroom and a kettle complete with tea, coffee, hot chocolate, bottled water and packets of Walker’s shortbread. All for £58, the price of dinner for two at Pizza Express? Dear god, this must be the best-value hotel in the country. Better still, you’re a hop, skip and stumble from the pub. What’s not to love?

Well, OK, it is a Wetherspoon’s hotel. Which is enough to put some people off right away. And I can’t say I was expecting too much at the price – scratchy nylon sheets, showers that dribble like an old man with prostate problems, duvets with suspect stains and pillows more suited to insulation than sleeping. Despite having stayed in every level of hotel in the past 50 years (the low point was a hellhole in Jabalpur, India, that we later found out was a brothel, complete with thin walls, bed bugs, rats and full ‘sexy time’ surround sound. We most certainly did NOT partake in the room service), I am a total five-star hotel bore. Give me Egyptian-cotton sheets with a thread count in the thousands, and a pillow menu that takes five minutes to read.

I want lots of smelly things in the bathroom (preferably Le Labo or Kiehl’s), with huge, fog-free, lovingly lit mirrors. Minibars must be stocked with icy Chablis, Mexican Coca-Cola, Herradura blanco tequila and snacks of every hue and texture. Tubs should be large enough to swim in, with bathrobes as soft as a sigh. Oh, and they had better do a serious club sandwich. You can always judge a hotel by the quality of its club sandwich.

I have my favourites. Of course I do, spoilt, soft-handed sybarite that I am. The Carlyle and The Lowell in New York, The Plaza Athénée in Paris, The Mandarin and Park Hyatt in Tokyo, the Sofitel in Hanoi, Upper House in Hong Kong, the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. And Claridge’s in London. Always and forever Claridge’s. But £58 would barely get you breakfast in any of the above, let alone bed and a bath. So it was not without a touch of trepidation that I climbed the stairs at the back of the bar – stairs covered in the same floral-print carpet as the pub – to a tiny reception area. Where, after pressing the bell and waiting a minute, a charming manager gives me the key. ‘It’s literally around the corner,’ he says with a smile. ‘If you need anything, give me a ring.’

We push through a couple of fire doors, touch plastic card to door lock, insert same card in slot to turn on the lights, to be greeted by… not so much a Pinter-esque boarding house, rather a perfectly civilised hotel room. The sheets are cotton, the bed queen-sized, with a smart wooden headboard. There are side lamps with bulbs bold enough to read, but not so bright they resemble strip lights in Amazon packing plants. The bathroom is sparkling clean, the towels a decent size, and soft, too. While the shower has a wide square head, the pressure of Victoria Falls.

The kettle is new, there are wooden coat hangers in the cupboard, the wi-fi is strong as an ox, and there is even a hairdryer. I’ve stayed in far worse places, for three times the price. The décor may not be featuring in Architectural Digest any time soon, but it’s warm, spotless and even has a telly on the wall.

OK, so we get back later, after a splendid dinner at the Goat on The Roof (review coming soon) and find the pillows insufferable, just monolithic blocks of cheap foam. The bed could be bigger, and also sits right above the entrance to The Hatchet Inn. We fall asleep to the not-so-dulcet tones of the pub being disgorged on to the street, around about 1am, and wake, a few hours later, to a very early-morning marketing meeting. The office is on the other side of a particularly thin wall, and we can hear every word, creak and rustle. Linger in the shower too long and it floods, while the extractor fan sounds like an angry chainsaw, and whirrs on for hours after the light has been turned off. But for £58, it feels churlish to complain.

Breakfast, which is not included in the price, is rather less appealing. Sat among the early-morning pint pounders, the ravenous workmen, and pensioners slowly masticating their toast, I order a ‘Small Breakfast’ for £2.99. The coffee is just about OK, and the bacon passable. Those grim yellow pucks of hash browns are the devil’s work, though, and thus avoided; baked beans taste of salt and despair, while the sausage is shrivelled and fairly sorry. The fried egg, on the other hand, is very respectable. As is a bacon butty, three well-done rashers on lavishly buttered white bread. As for the eggs Benedict? Don’t. Just don’t.

What is impressive about Wetherspoon’s, though, is the sense of community they provide. Sure, they may not always be the most elegant of pubs. And purists, no doubt, will baulk. They always do. But opening at 7am every day, these pubs are as much about company as they are about booze, social hubs as well as secular churches. We see pensioners, sitting in groups, pairs or simply alone, allowed to linger over their bottomless tea and coffee all day long, happy to be warm and surrounded by fellow human beings. A salve to loneliness, and a place to get cheap, hot food. That’s something to celebrate.

As for the hotel? Astonishing value, of course, made better by its proximity to the pub. While not a revelation, it’s certainly a happy surprise. So there we go. Wetherspoon’s hotels. A lot nicer than you’d think.