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A rising star amongst the dreaming spires

Back in 1866 Matthew Arnold described Oxford more beautifully than the paraphrased cliché of today; he wrote: And that sweet city with her dreaming spires, she needs not June for beauty’s heightening. Despite the traffic and the tourists, Oxford, almost surprisingly, has retained is perennial bloom where other cities have given way to the careless tread of progress.

In the heart of the city, just minutes from world famous sites: The Bodlian Library, The Ashmolean Library and the Sir Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre, is a secluded gem called The Old Parsonage.

Tucked behind a Cotswold stone wall, the hotel is easy to miss which would be pity as it effortlessly lives up to its reputation as the ‘best hotel in Oxford’. And that is as true about the sumptuous interiors designed by Sally Conran as it is about the food and wine. It is a joy to experience the maze of ancient passages and stairs in the middle of which is a small library with its own secluded courtyard. Interesting pictures not only delight but, through familiarity, guide you to you room.

The old, Old Parsonage was given new life and opened in March 2014. The owner Jeremy Mogford spared no expense to create this rising star of excellence. His team have cleverly kept the old world charm and authentic look of the place but discretely added the colours and fabrics to complement the old whilst creating a cocoon of contemporary luxury.

The true measure of luxury lies in the detail and, in this respect, The Old Parsonage is something of a masterpiece. Leather-topped writing desks, Egyptian Cotton bed linen, spacious marble bathrooms and the latest Italian minibars about which Rebecca Mofford, the General Manager, had this to say: “They look great which is another huge advantage and the reason we were drawn to the NEXT DM compressor minibar in the first place”.

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Compressor minibars or Absorption minibars; what’s the difference?

There’s a world of difference in performance, cost and economy of operation between Absorption and Compressor minibars. Briefly, absorption minibars cost less to buy but a lot more to run.

The reasons for the difference is very technical so let’s not dig down too far! Refrigeration is a process of exchanging heat by evaporating a refrigerant. By the mid-20th century, most refrigerators were of the compressor type and used a chlorine-based refrigerant, CFC, which was banned because of its destructive effects on the Earth’s Ozone layer. So the absorption process became more commonplace in domestic refrigerators although the cooling process takes longer and is more expensive to run.

The space age, however, demanded greater efficiency in a more compact form. This gave a new lease of life to the compressor refrigerator, one that had no toxicityand was far faster in reaching the desired temperature of around 4ºC. Vitrifrigo, through its parent company, Rivacold, commercially developed this innovation for their minibars which are over 85% more economical to run and reduce the temperature from ambient to cold four times faster than the absorption method.

The new compressor minibars belong to the NEXT DM series, which haS been awarded the highest possible EU Energy rating: A+++ for the solid door version and A++ for the glass door version.

Vitrifrigo’s absorption minibars are nevertheless an excellent choice for the budget conscious hotel. They are rated A+ and employ Low Power Consumption (LPC) technology and are virtually silent in operation.

The post Compressor vs Absorption first appeared on A3 Solutions.