First things first - the museum itself is rubbish. Quite literally. It’s a room filled with a big old load of tat. Including a section of old cafe-style coffee makers - which is essentially like going to a low-rent local auction house where they’re having a bankrupt stock sale.

The tea-room itself is far better quality than it appears. We plumped for the official cream tea - which was a touch pricey, but came with scone AND cake. The scones were a little on the small side, but beautiful - soft, warm and fruity. Cream was ample and jam was strawberry. Cakes, too were moist and full of lovliness.

Tea was served in china pots. Loose leaf (the holy grail!) with a strainer. Choice of teas offered - I chose ‘tea room blend’ and Richy went with the Assam. And the best bit was the tea was delivered along with a miniature timer, so we didn’t dive in and drink the tea before it was brewed to perfection. Class act.

£7.00

Guest Reviewer: Ann

My reason for being in Cheddar was to attend the Big Green Gathering, a hippie festival, and a very good one too. But after three days of vegan fritters and scrumpy cider, I had extreme cream tea deficiency, so we caught the rattly old hippie bus into Cheddar to search one out.

60% of the establishments in Cheddar are tea shops, the other 40% are cheese and/or cider shops, or caves. The choice was wide, but we plumped for the modest Holly House. At first the decor - plain white with many pictures of tea or coffee - put me off. But the prices were right - £2.50 for single cream tea, comprising scone, cream, jam and pot of tea (enough for two and a half cups, so three with the hot water.)

The scone - plain - was excellent. Warm, moist, fresh baked, it could not have been better. Cream - very good, served in a little pot. Only the jam let things down, being a single portion serving, of strawberry, yes, but wrapped in plastic. My partner had not planned to have a cream tea, but on seeing mine insisted on having a bite. Oooh, that’s nice, he said, then ordered his own, mostly on the strength of the scone.

£2.50 Full cream tea
£1.50 Scone, cream and jam without tea.

It’s a tough one this. Hard to judge by simple cream tea standards, since we plunged in and had the full afternoon. This included a range of sandwiches and quite insane numbers of cakes as you can see in the picture.

But let’s stick to what we know and discuss the scones and tea. Tea - perfectly nice, but the pots were small and we had to ask for extra. The first jug of milk had unidentified floating black bits in it - but was changed without argument.

Scones - both fruit and plain were provided. With lashings of clotted cream and gallons of jam - but the jam was blackcurrant - and a tart blackcurrant at that. Pleurgh! Scones themselves, could have been plumper, moister and more generous with the fruit - especially considering this was a high-class establishment. But you can’t fault the presentation. Look at that sprinkling of icing sugar, embrace the scattering of genuine strawberries!

The rest of the tea - sandwiches and cakes were excellent - the lemon drizzle and shortbreads proved particularly popular with our party - so I don’t like to be too mean. But I’d be pretty narked if I’d paid £6 for the simple cream tea and got those scones.

£12 for full afternoon tea - if you wanted the regular cream tea - £6

While dawdling at the tills I noticed the brand new cafe was offering a plastic box, prefilled with all the cream tea acoutrements. Could I resist? Could I buffalo!

The plastic boxes were in the fridge and contained a scone, wrapped in cling-film. A pat of butter, and pre-packaged pots of cream and jam. Jam varied from box to box - I chose a strawberry one.

Scone, plain and on the small side - and very over-chilled from the fridge, but basically sound. Cream was a pre-packaged pot and HUGE - more than enough for the scone, so I didn’t use the butter, tucked it in my bag for use at home. Jam - Frank Coopers - a good brand, but my plastic pot contained no actual fruit, and was a tad solid.

Tea in a pot. Milk in plastic prepacks (grrr). Yield, two cups of slightly over-strong tea.

Overall I was pretty impressed - and if the price is correct, pretty unbeatable value.

£1.29 !!!!

Note: This price may well be a mistake. The cream tea in a box should have been £1.79 plus 79p for the tea, but somehow the till turned it into £1.29 for the lot. I expressed surprise, but didn’t argue! (The girl rang everything up correctly, I watched it register - perhaps a till programming error - or maybe a special opening offer for the new cafe?)

Guest Reviewer: Richy

After waiting for some considerable time to be served (sitting outside on a grey but warm day) a charming tall, lean, toned and very pretty dark haired, olive skinned chap finally came to take out order. We had one cream tea and tea for two shared between 3 of us so ended up with a scone and a third each which turned out to be more than adequate.

The scones were white fruit and very slightly dry/over cooked. The cream was very thick and divine. The jam was a slight let down, rather solid and lacking in the feel that it had seen real fruit. The tea supply was very generous although we were not given a choice - I rather like an Assam with a scone, but each to their own.

That makes it all sound much worse than it was, nice setting, large scones, goodly supply
of both cream and jam, very hot tea, sparkling cutlery and crockery and a dishy waiter - all told about 7 out of 10.

£5.90 - for cream tea, plus additional tea for two