Jmbricklayer Medieval Hotel (31103) Review

JMBricklayers have kindly sent us a handful of sets to reveiw and showcase to you what they have to offer in terms of brick sets. Stuart (Brick McBricksworth) recently wrote a great review for us of the brand new JMBricklayers Mechanical Chameleon (70124) set, which you can check out here if you haven’t already.

Today I have a very exciting set to show you, the JMBricklayers Medieval Hotel (31103). I chose this set to review as it most reminded me of the recent LEGO Hocus Pocus (21341) offering, both being medieval style buildings and have roughly the same size & feel about them. I’ll be doing a comparison review separately to this one once I have built the LEGO Hocus Pocus (21341) set.

As Stuart mentioned in his review there is some stigma surrounding alternative brands, but I’m here to convince you and the die-hard LEGO fans out there that some brands are worth checking out, especially if the leading brand doesn’t produce a certain theme or set.

To browse the full range of JMBricklayers sets please use this link and code thebrickpost15% to bag yourself 15% off (non-sale items).

To view the set we’re reviewing today, please click here and use VIPTBP15, this grants you 15% off of the Medieval Hotel (31103) at JMB store on Amazon US, valid for one month.

Diving straight into our review of the JMBricklayers Medieval Hotel (31103), which includes lighting, we’ll start off like any other review, the box and what’s inside.

The Box & Contents:

The box itself has joined in with the recent trend of being simple yet bold, showing off the set inside against a solid black background. The image of the set is embossed slightly which gives it a more premium feel to other brands.

Inside the box are 11 numbered bags, a light kit and an instruction manual. There is are also separate bags for the Minifigs and larger plates.

The manual is laid out in a way that makes more sense to the builder, with previous steps greyed out with only the new parts highlighted and where they go. I particularly like this method as it makes the whole process that much more enjoyable.

A nice selection of plates are included, these mostly form. The base one which the Medieval Hotel sits upon.

The Build:

This is my first ever JMBricklayers set so I was a little apprehensive on what the the quality and build would be like. I’ll say right off the bat that both are great. The parts in offer here are very similar to the leading brand and in most cases have strong clutch power, sometimes a little to strong. That being said the parts stay together well, for plates this is even more so, try prising two JMBricklayers 2×2 plates apart, I dare you!

The first bag comprises of the Minifigs (later in the review) and the rather smart Wagon build.

In tru block tradition there has to be a small side build, here in the Medieval Hotel (31103) set is a Wagon. It suits the overall look and theme of the build and doesn’t look at all out of place. The curved roof, dark brown Wagon and the many accessories packed into and into this thing is crazy, in a good way. I presume it’s meant to be a permanent fixture to the grounds around the Medieval Hotel as no Horses were included. This is fine with me as this type of Wagon is traditionally left in one please whilst settled for long periods of time.

The next couple of bags build and complete the base on which the Medieval Hotel sits. This for me is always the most stressful part of any build, especially when so many plates are involved. Layering plates on top of each other could have been avoided and replaced by bricks. As mentioned before the clutch power of the plates especially is very strong, not necessarily a bad thing as the final product is strong and sturdy, it’s putting them together that hurts the fingers.

You also get a feel of how big the building will be from the bases footprint. Not sticking to a traditional square baseplate and going for a more natural look really works well.

As you build up the ground floor, porch and chimney the building really starts to look great, here is when I really started enjoying the build experience. Having bigger bricks to play with helped get the walls built faster and time seemed to fly by. There were obviously smaller elements to add, again plates stacked on each other, these helped raise up the pillars in between the windows to the right height in order to fit long tiles to them to create the Medieval beams.

The ground floor is somewhat hidden at the back due to the overhanging porch roof, which in itself looks great. It’s a shame as it over shadows the lovely stained glass windows. Thankfilly more can be seen on the other side.

The first floor continues the shape but with one of the wall coming slightly in to create a balcony area for the guests to wander out on from their room.

I particularly like the colour scheme of this floor, the snad green bricks goes well with the dark brown (wood) coloured beams. I’m not entirely sure if this colour was possible back then but I’m not complaining, it looks great.

It takes 2 or 3 bags to get this far, adding the first floor, building up the chimney and adding beams for the roof. Placing random bricks to make up the chimney gives it very realistic look, like something you’d see in real-life and old buildings.

The last few bags, not including the final bag, constructs the top floor and roof. As you can see from the above image the wall colour is sand blue, another interesting choice of wall colour, one I love!

Add the light grey roof and JMBricklayers are onto a winner, the outside of the Medieval Hotel looks absolutely stunning and I must say I am pleasantly surprised with the set. I can picture this and others from their Medieval range looking amazing in a larger town setup.

The interior looks just as good with a multitude of details and accessories to bring this set to life. The ground floor is where the guests meet and dine, with a bar area and a dining table,fully stocked I might add.

The first floor is where I presume the guests sleep, although there is only one bed and room, not quite a Hotel, more of an Inn I’d say.

There’s a comfy looking bed and rocking chair along with a book case and writing/map making desk complete with ink well & quill. Don’t forget the door to the balcony, add that and the many windows and you have a nice place to rest & sleep.

Up in the loft/attic space you’ll find tm where the supplies are kept, there are tons of bottles and what I presume to be Mead or Ale on the barrels, every good Inn needs quality beer. Randomly there is also a Cat lurking in the dark, it must be the owners.

Back outside and you’ll notice there is lots to look at an taking. On one side you’ll find Chickens, nicely tucked away by the side of the Hotel. The whole place is surrounded by foliage and trees, which adds so much to the overall look & feel of the set.

I’ll be honest and say one tree in particular is very frustrating to piece together, the stud-shooters are really designed to do the job the designers intended. Sure the tree holds for the most part but a slight bump or tap and the whole thing pops and falls apart. I managed to get a photo or two before removing the light green Birch tree altogether.

The other two trees are great and very sturdy, these are my favourites anyway as the Autumnal colours look lovely.

Overall the set is good and like I mentioned above a nice surprise to have something that is of higher quality than other alternative brands. I’d love to have another 1 or 2 sets to add along side this one to truly get a small Medieval town started.

For my first JMBricklayers set I am happily surprised and would love to give another one a go. Even the Minifigs are good. The designers have pulled this Medieval Hotel out the bag and it looks wonderful. There were some frustrating parts to the build but nothing to worry about, we got there in the end!

Lighting it up:

The set includes a very simple light kit, this lakes me happy as some light kits are ridiculously fiddly. This one consists of 3 1×8 transparent plates and a thin LED strip unfortunately there aren’t any instructions for the light kit installation so I popped all three inside the ground floor and let the light shine through the stained glass windows. It looks stunning, especially in the dark!

Thank you for reading this review, please do leave a comment below with your thoughts on the set, we love hearing from you.

Don’t forget you can bag yourself 15% off with our links and codes. To browse the full range of JMBricklayers sets please use this link and code thebrickpost15% to bag yourself 15% off (non-sale items).

To view the set we’re reviewing today, please click here and use VIPTBP15, this grants you 15% off of the Medieval Hotel (31103) at JMB store on Amazon US, valid for one month.