Some English hotel rooms are a potential health hazard, according to Holiday Which? magazine. Toe-nail clippings, dead flies, soiled mattresses and filthy bog brushes were just some of the sights that greeted Holiday Which? inspectors on a tour of hotels in London and Blackpool.

Fourteen out of the 20 hotels investigated failed to clear the hygiene hurdle set by an independent microbiologist prior to the inspections. Not one of the hotel rooms had a 100% pass-rate.

Samples taken from around the rooms tested positive for a range of bacteria, including faecal coliforms, which can indicate faecal contamination. It turned up on taps and sinks, and even on a glass and a coffee mug.

Sink taps turned out to be particularly foul, with nine out of 10 taps swabbed in Blackpool failing at least one of the tests.

And as the inspection team found, looks can be deceptive. The cost per night for the rooms visited by the inspection team was around £80. Six of the hotels visited belonged to major chains, and while they generally appeared cleaner to the naked eye, half still failed the microbiological tests.

Neil Fazakerley, Holiday Which?, said: "Hotel kitchens are quite rightly bound by all manner of hygiene regulations, but far too little attention is being paid to standards of hygiene elsewhere."

"We'd like all hotels to be graded, and for grading inspections to be carried out anonymously so hotels are kept clean all year round and not just on inspection day."