Review The Whitaker - Rossendale

Lovely modernised building and grounds. It's a great place for artifacts of the local area. History and art displays. Food and drink available. Toilets. Good amount of parking and an incredible edible garden that explains how to use the herbs and plants they have for all to benefit from.

Lovely little museum with nice cafe/ restaurant and friendly staff

Absolutely excellent gallery with a wide variety of diverse and stimulating artworks, all set in beautiful grounds. Had a really enjoyable afternoon and look forward to visiting again soon!

It was a lovely occasion. Very well planned and organised. Wonderful venue. Vast amount of volunteers, all doing a great job. Wonderful atmosphere and everyone seemed really happy. Proud to be a part of the ukulele group contributing to the happiness!

Really pretty museum with contemporary pieces. Very small though so doesn’t take too long to walk around. Cafe is a bit over priced and took a while to get a coffee.

This was a great find. A small museum in an old house, with a VERY eclectic collection of exhibits. On the ground floor the main attractions are the 19th century taxidermy collection, and the Room of Curiosities which is spooky, strange, eye catching, amazing, and distressing in almost equal measure. There was also a room with a contemporary conceptual artist's work, which I am usually not a fan of, but this was very well thought out and constructed. Upstairs they host local contemporary artists' exhibitions. On this visit it was a joint exhibition of three wonderful female artists' works - a painter, a textile artist, and a poet. It was a fantastic grouping, each enhanced the others' work so that the overall effect was greater than would have been the case individually.

Fabulous time, lunch was good, staff great. The museum was fantastic, lovely to see items from my childhood and love the way it's set out. The great grandchildren absolutely loved it as did we.

Nice museum 😊 Lovely staff 👍🏻

Used to play on this park when i was a kid...yeah its alright, if you want the park, i would park at the top..its a big hill.. the museam is pretty cool.. there is a new cafe, bar, food place, ive yet to try! But looks and smells amazing..i am looking forward to when the renovations of the whole park are done.. extra amenities.

Superb evening. Glorious weather for drinks on the terrace. Then super evening meal....batter on fish to die for.....Then wonderful nostalgic JAZZ FILM.

A wonderful museum and art gallery. From 6 to 66 we enjoyed this, small but interesting and the cafe is excellent! The room of curiosities was a hit byallas was the children's trail

Everything a local museum should be and more! Varied, engaging and thoughtful displays, nice cafe, friendly staff..just great!

A great local museum. Just the right mix of family friendly, fascinating history, local pride, weird Victorian taxidermy and the down-right odd. Highly recommend!

Nice museum, very well done and lots to look at, super cafe, very friendly and helpful staff. Well recommended day out for the whole family.

Interesting museum in former Mill owner's House that dates from 1840.

I love this park, there’s lots to do for children from foraging to the actual park itself and the walk round the beautifully maintained nature park. It’s a regular place for our family to visit, we love it!

Well we absolutely adored this place before having our wedding here ... and now we're completely in love! The day was absolutely perfect and ran smoothly from start to finish and that's all thanks to Jackie and the team. Jackie completely understood what we were about and shared our vision throughout from the food right through to the small details. We can't recommend the food here enough, our wedding BBQ with Ottolenghi inspired salad platters was truly delicious, and most of our guests commented that it was the best food they'd ever experienced at a wedding. I have had lunch here many times before and the food, coffee and beautiful wines and gins never fail to impress. We've spent many a family day here at the fantastic events held in the museum and the beautiful grounds, and each one really has had something for us all. Rossendale is so lucky to have this beautiful, local gem! �

Myself and four others booked ahead for breakfast at The Whitaker. Our table was booked for 11am and we ordered our food almost immediately on arrival. We were still waiting for our breakfast which was nothing out of the ordinary (eggs,toast, sausages) at 12.10. None of the staff asked if we would like more coffees or apologised for our wait whilst we were patiently sitting at the table. We finally had had enough and decided to leave over an hour after having ordered as the food was STILL not even on its way out. This restaurant has only 7 tables and is hardly what ANYONE would label a "busy" restaurant - especially when it's breakfast time. We were absolutely appalled by the service more so because the staff continued to say that it was because there was only one chef woking rather than offer their apologies/drinks while we waited/toast while we waited. I would never recommend this restaurant to anyone and feel that one star is more than is due. (I never normally write reviews but the service was terrible, I felt I couldn't not leave a comment for future visitors).

Had to post and let everyone know how much we loved dining at The Whitaker. We celebrated our wedding anniversary and dined on the 30th December which was the first of the 5 course tasting menu evenings which will be held seasonally throughout the year , and it didn't disappoint. The food was second to none, great atmosphere and an amazing wine package selected to complement each course. Cannot rate this highly enough and would encourage anyone in the area or not to visit and try the food there, you won't be disappointed ��

Absolutely terrible. Seats v few people. Should be manageable at all times, but yet the service is awful. Which is quite annoying as the food is generally good... Waited way over an hour for a breakfast, offered no toast or anything in mean time for the young children. The drinks took 45 mins. The owner repeatedly continued to tell us there was only 1 chef. One would imagine that cooking breakfast for 12 people would be manageable for a professional chef. Failing that. As the owner she could easily have helped knock up some bacon and eggs rather than dithering around. I’m afraid this is what you expect from government funded projects. Buffoons who don’t understand how to provide good service. Another example of councils unscrupulously wasting people’s money.. I would strongly advise against visiting. And will choose to spend my money elsewhere in future.

Went yesterday for the first time. Thought it would be perfect for the little one as there was space outside to sit and him to play. The area was dirty with old glasses on the table, food all over the floor, cigarette ends and ash on the table. One lady came to clean the table which consisted of collecting some glasses and she didn’t even acknowledge us being there other than to say ‘order at the bar’. I cleaned the table with baby wipes and the left over glasses were collected half an hour later by a friendly young lad. Food sounded incredible but didn’t live up to the hype and paying £10 for 2 slices of sweet potato, some kale, 1 slice of cheese and a crispy piece of bread type mixture was rather steep and disappointing. Waited an hour for the food and wasn’t asked if it was ok afterwards, in fact the waitress collected our plates and went and sat down at the table next to us to have a ‘fag’ with her friends whilst holding our plates. Other than having somewhere for the little one to run round I won’t be in a rush to return. Shame really as heard such great things

2 stars for food (if just rating food would have been higher!), zero for front of house attitude. Came here today 17th March 2018 for my low-key birthday and baby shower. Just 12 of us, no games or decorations etc. It was very busy but the service was particularly slow. Had to ask twice for even tap water, a good 20 or so minute plus wait for dessert. Was told by the waitress the sticky toffee pudding came with ice cream. It arrived with none, so had to ask for it to be brought out. Had finished the pudding by the time it arrived! Then found out we’d actually be charged for the ice cream as it didn’t come with the pudding after all! At this point you’d expect the waitress to waive the charge (she simply said sorry I thought it did), but we had to initiate this ourselves when it came to paying the bill. Food nice, service v slow but polite - what’s driven me to this review is the disgusting attitude from the manager/front of house brunette lady. Every time I walked past her to the toilet and smiled and said hello she just blanked me. Then, without realising my friend was stood next to her, she said “we need to get rid of that lot quickly”, to which the waitress replied “ I’m trying.” How rude! We weren’t rowdy, it was almost empty in the restaurant by the time we’d left, so not sure what this comment was all about considering lots of free tables. We had to faff getting up to pay individually at the bar and wait a significant time between courses (we were there 2.5 hours). We will have spent well over £200 between 12 of us. But whether we spent £2 or £200, saying that about a group of friends and my mother and mother-in-law is awful. I was hoping the new chef would have resulted in change after I read the reviews about poor service on here. Lovely food, totally let down by the service, but even more so the front of house’s attitude and words. Shame this rounded off a special event.

Food was lovely however we have always found the service to be lacking. Had to ask for a menu. When we ordered our food, the waitress asked if we wanted our soup as a starter or with our main course. Our bill never arrived and we had to go to the till to pay. Think the staff need some training but overall a nice experience.

Fabulous venue for my 40th. Staff were so helpful and kind, bar reasonably priced and a beautiful, quirky place. Halloumi, fishfinger and pulled pork sandwiches were a triumph. All the guests were full of compliments to the venue, staff and food. Thank you.

I brought my husband to the whittaker for lunch yesterday for our anniversary and the food was excellent as usual. I have visited quite a few times but this was my husbands first time and he was delighted with the food. I would definitely recommend the whittaker for lunch or just a brew and a piece of cake. We now need to try the breakfast and Sunday lunch, I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

Had my 60th birthday party on Saturday cannot praise the staff enough was a great night and everyone commented on what a great venue it was. Also thanks to Liam and Sarah for the great set. The canapés were great and thanks again for arranging the beers as requested so I wouldn't hesitate recommending the Whittaker as a venue for this type of celebration. Regards Allan

Great food and Bar staff waiting service needs work on customer service all in all a little gem

Myself and my husband visited for a late breakfast, the food and service was excellent, especially the knowledge about the museum itself from front of staff

Whitaker restaurant...been a few times and food always good and well presented but was extremely disappointed with the service. We booked the table days before. We waited well over half and hour for the food which we didn't mind as I was catching up with friends. We had a dessert also and as soon as we finished dessert we asked for the bill. We were told we could not have the bill at the table and had to go to the bar to pay due to the tills. This has never been the case and the lady at the bar said there was no reason for this. We did not go to the bar for about 5/10 min but then waitress then told us we us to leave as we had been there long enough and the table was needed! This was highly embarrassing and the way she spoke to us was very rude, especially when other tables heard this! Half the tables were empty and no one was waiting to be seated so this was absolutely unnecessary. This was the middle of the afternoon, we wasn't noisy or inappropriate in any way! I have never been asked to leave and this really ruined my experience of a nice place to eat where I frequently go :(

Enjoyed a birthday lunch with friends, great food, friendly staff and lovely setting!

Fantastic afternoon, the food was excellent, staff very helpful, and the museum with the animals in was a bonus, will definitely be going again�

An Iconic place in the heart of the valley that offers a variety of use for the community within the catchment area and from the outer areas too. A very high bench mark in standards ,innovation and culture long may it continue .