Wayside Guest House

Positives: Wayside Guest House is across the street from The Elms mansion, 0.5 mi walk from the main street in Newport (restaurants, bars, shops), and 1 mi from the cliff walk’s forty steps. Perfect location. The pool is nice. And, surely the mansion was beautiful in Newport’s glory days.
Negatives: The mansion has seen much better days and does not look like the pictures on the web site. From the outside, the mansion looks very run down. Our room had a funky smell (mildewy and something else) when we first walked in. We opened the window, but this helped little. One wall smelled strongly and there was a brown stain on the ceiling next to this wall. By the next morning we had had enough. We told the innkeeper about the smell; he said he didn’t smell it (impossible), but after some hints from us offered a different (smaller) room. While everyone was polite, the innkeeper was clearly annoyed by the inconvenience. He did inform us that the stain was likely from his mother-in-law’s bathroom directly above, and based on the stain’s smell and color, I would say the toilet is leaking. Woe-​betide future room 3 guests! (The room we moved to smelled fine.)
The breakfast was also disappointing. While the inn did advertise a «wholesome continental breakfast,» I would have expected better than tubs of cereal, chopped fruit, a basket of homemade but boring muffins, and coffee served in the glass pitcher you find at gas stations. Maybe it was the presentation, maybe it was having just emerged from a sewage room, but I was disappointed. The inn also had no local information other the sort of brochure packets that get dropped off at every hotel (soliciting for cruises, museums and vineyards, etc.).
The Wayside has clearly seen better days, but as long as you don’t mind a B&B that’s past its prime, has a lack-​luster breakfast, and is less than friendly (but better than surly) then the Wayside Guest House is for you… unless you end up in the mildewy/​maybe-​sewage room!