Upon waking after a fitful night’s sleep at the Stuart House Hotel, King’s Lynn, I turned over and promptly fell on the floor.

From this position, horizontal on a threadbare carpet, I stared at the ceiling and was reminded of the experience of Sal Paradise, the main character in On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, as he woke one morning in a gloomy motel in Des Moines on his travels across America.

“I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I’d never seen,” Paradise says.

“I looked at the cracked high ceiling and didn’t really know who I was for about 15 strange seconds. I wasn’t scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost.”

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OK, there weren’t any cracks in the ceiling, but lying on the carpet I did begin to wonder for a few moments where I was, who I was, and how on earth I had ended up there.

Stuart House Hotel looked nice enough from the outside: a pretty building covered in vines on a quiet residential street within a short walk of the River Ouse. But then I entered my room. This was a single overlooking the front of the building, and it was tiny — overall not much bigger than the narrow, sloping single mattress of the bed.

There was a desk on which I could just fit my laptop, and a TV on a bracket with a screen about the size of a hardback novel. Trying to watch a football match on this was like witnessing ants chasing a speck of dust.

Next to the desk was a large window (the only large part of the room). However, unless I drew the curtains, this meant that anyone passing could look right in. People stared indulgently as I tapped out an e-mail at the cramped desk.

I wondered what it is about British hotels and single rooms as a man with a dog walked by, peering up inquisitively. Staying solo in the US I’ve had huge, cheap “single rooms” with vast double beds, ice-making buckets, giant TVs and bathtubs big enough for an American footballer. But not in King’s Lynn.

Downstairs there was a lively restaurant-bar full of German contract workers. A pleasant waitress served me bangers and mash and beer. A black and white cat sat on my lap. Pop music played in a loop on the stereo. For 15 strange seconds, or perhaps more, I felt quite content. Then I went back to my room.

Need to know

Stuart House Hotel (01553 772169, www.stuarthousehotel.co.uk), 35 Goodwins Road, King’s Lynn, Norfolk PE30 5QX.

Mystery Guest paid £75 for a B&B single. Bangers and mash, with a beer: £11.

Room: 1 out of 10

Food: 5

Service: 7

Value: 1

Score: 3.5

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