Premier Inn Barking

Rooms at the Premier Inn Barking feature a king-size Hypnos bed and a comfortable chair (twin rooms have a double bed and a chaise longue/sofa bed), a writing desk, a flat-screen television, tea and coffee making facilities and an en suite bathroom. The bathroom has a bathtub with a showerhead above it rather than a proper walk-in shower. All rooms have free Wi-Fi wireless internet access (up to 1GB per day).

The hotel also features the Thyme Bar & Grill, which has an international menu with mostly casual options. The hotel restaurant is open for breakfast and dinner.

It is part of a cluster of hotels (which also includes an ibis and an ibis budget) wedged between the North Circular Road and the River Roding. Although the location facing the busy North Circular Road isn’t very appealing, the hotel backs onto the River Roding and the walk to Barking station takes you past modern blocks of flats and a nice park before you get to Barking’s busy suburban centre, which has plenty of shops and places to eat and drink. There is a large Tesco superstore nearby, which is only a short walk from the hotel.

Although not as close to the station as the Barking Travelodge, it is a pleasant 13-minute walk to Barking station, which has around 30 trains per hour into Central London comprised of eight trains an hour to Fenchurch Street station and over 20 underground trains (District and Hammersmith and City lines). Trains from Barking take 18 minutes to get to Fenchurch Street station in The City and it takes 35 minutes to catch the tube to Westminster or Kings Cross St Pancras.

The hotel has its own car park, which costs £5 per night.

Premier Inn is the largest hotel chain in the United Kingdom and it usually scores very high on customer surveys when compared to other UK hotel chains. It operates at the budget end of the market and provides a reasonably high standard of accommodation for the price, and is comparable to ibis and Travelodge hotels.