Louise
York | Friends
We stayed for a week in this cottage, well, we were meant to but actually left two nights early in the end. The property is very pretty from the outside, and it has a lovely garden out the back. It's in a hamlet that is within easy reach of some lovely villages and towns as long as you have a car. We met the neighbour who was lovely and very helpful.
We found the kitchen was reasonably well equipped compared to what previous reviewers had mentioned, so am not sure if more had been added by the owners or if other people had added to it. The kitchen and dining room was quite a nice area. The decor throughout is quite quirky and fun as you can see from the photos.
The property is a few hundred years old, so you have to expect that there will be some bugs inside, especially given it's thatched. We found there were quite a lot of woodlice downstairs, which came out at night in particular. This didn't hugely phase me, but it bothered my friend a lot to the point where they wouldn't use the downstairs bathroom. They stayed in the downstairs bedroom and also found a slug in there too. Again, it's an old property so these things can happen, but I wanted to share for anyone who is unaware of this. There are also silver fish in the bathroom which I hope is sorted out as that's not down to the property being old.
What we both found unpleasant was the smell in the property, it was really musty and was quite strong. The windows in the living room don't open to air it out which doesn't help. It wasn't just in the older part of the building too, the play room, which seemed more of a storage room, had such a strong smell we didn't go in again after our initial exploration upon arrival. We did wonder to what extent this was down to potentially being unoccupied for a long period of time during the pandemic. The property needs a really deep clean and a good airing out to get rid of this. I've had to wash clothes I didn't wear when I was there to get rid of the smell.
The other thing we found extremely annoying were the showers. The shower upstairs has high water pressure, which I was delighted to find out, but as with the downstairs shower, the heads are one of those thin tubes with holes in that is usually used as a moveable head in addition to a larger normal showerhead, which are just rubbish as a normal showerhead. You couldn't really adjust the pressure either, it was on and very powerful, or off. Because of the thin bar head and the pressure it means it's quite easy for water to spray beyond the bath onto the floor. This isn't helped by the fact that the seal on the bottom of the glass door on the bath doesn't actually sit flush against the edge of the bath to stop water getting out. All of these things could be fixed, and I'm hoping they are.
I think this could be a lovely property, but it needs some work doing to it to make it worth considering for me so I wouldn't recommend it or stay there again unfortunately. The location is great, and the exterior is beautiful, but it wasn't worth the cost compared to the property we'd stayed in the week previously elsewhere. If you're doing a night or two, it'd be ok, but if you're wanting somewhere nice to stay for a week, this isn't the place at the moment unfortunately.
We did find that the internet was absolutely fine the entire time we were there, which differs from other comments of previous guests. I don't know if we just lucked out or if something had changed, but we had internet enough to be able to stream videos. There is very little phone signal there, it goes in and out, so the internet was needed to help us look up where we were going etc. as a minimum.
Just a final note to say that I've rated the local amenities lower as you need a car to be able to get anywhere and nothing is on the doorstep, but that's part of the appeal of going somewhere like this a lot of the time so it's a bit of an odd rating for properties that are more remote. There are some wonderful places nearby to visit.
We stayed for a week in this cottage, well, we were meant to but actually left two nights early in the end. The property is very pretty from the outside, and it has a lovely garden out the back. It's in a hamlet that is within easy reach of some lovely villages and towns as long as you have a car. We met the neighbour who was lovely and very helpful.
We found the kitchen was reasonably well equipped compared to what previous reviewers had mentioned, so am not sure if more had been added by the owners or if other people had added to it. The kitchen and dining room was quite a nice area. The decor throughout is quite quirky and fun as you can see from the photos.
The property is a few hundred years old, so you have to expect that there will be some bugs inside, especially given it's thatched. We found there were quite a lot of woodlice downstairs, which came out at night in particular. This didn't hugely phase me, but it bothered my friend a lot to the point where they wouldn't use the downstairs bathroom. They stayed in the downstairs bedroom and also found a slug in there too. Again, it's an old property so these things can happen, but I wanted to share for anyone who is unaware of this. There are also silver fish in the bathroom which I hope is sorted out as that's not down to the property being old.
What we both found unpleasant was the smell in the property, it was really musty and was quite strong. The windows in the living room don't open to air it out which doesn't help. It wasn't just in the older part of the building too, the play room, which seemed more of a storage room, had such a strong smell we didn't go in again after our initial exploration upon arrival. We did wonder to what extent this was down to potentially being unoccupied for a long period of time during the pandemic. The property needs a really deep clean and a good airing out to get rid of this. I've had to wash clothes I didn't wear when I was there to get rid of the smell.
The other thing we found extremely annoying were the showers. The shower upstairs has high water pressure, which I was delighted to find out, but as with the downstairs shower, the heads are one of those thin tubes with holes in that is usually used as a moveable head in addition to a larger normal showerhead, which are just rubbish as a normal showerhead. You couldn't really adjust the pressure either, it was on and very powerful, or off. Because of the thin bar head and the pressure it means it's quite easy for water to spray beyond the bath onto the floor. This isn't helped by the fact that the seal on the bottom of the glass door on the bath doesn't actually sit flush against the edge of the bath to stop water getting out. All of these things could be fixed, and I'm hoping they are.
I think this could be a lovely property, but it needs some work doing to it to make it worth considering for me so I wouldn't recommend it or stay there again unfortunately. The location is great, and the exterior is beautiful, but it wasn't worth the cost compared to the property we'd stayed in the week previously elsewhere. If you're doing a night or two, it'd be ok, but if you're wanting somewhere nice to stay for a week, this isn't the place at the moment unfortunately.
We did find that the internet was absolutely fine the entire time we were there, which differs from other comments of previous guests. I don't know if we just lucked out or if something had changed, but we had internet enough to be able to stream videos. There is very little phone signal there, it goes in and out, so the internet was needed to help us look up where we were going etc. as a minimum.
Just a final note to say that I've rated the local amenities lower as you need a car to be able to get anywhere and nothing is on the doorstep, but that's part of the appeal of going somewhere like this a lot of the time so it's a bit of an odd rating for properties that are more remote. There are some wonderful places nearby to visit.
Published on: 2021-06-28