AndyM1586
March 2019
Location is fab, beautiful spot on the waters edge at point quay.
Downhill from there I’m afraid. Some things not in the owners control, but a lot that are.
First let’s start outside the cottage itself. Bar walking a mile up the road to The Old Quay Inn there is nothing to walk to other than around the road and footpaths.
The road to the pub is actually quite busy and soon becomes a boring walk for you and your dog. Local footpaths are high hedged and claustrophobic with little in the way of views of the area.
You are then left with having to drive everywhere. Which is fine, just make sure you have this in your holiday plan, there are plenty of beaches within half an hour or so.
So onto the pub. Alarm bells rang immediatey when there were little notes left in the cottage informing people to beware of the old quay prices. They weren’t wrong. Average pub selling expensive average food. Small fish and chips £13.50, wife had a roast also £13.50. You have been warned.
On our week at the cottage there was extensive building work going on on one of the houses almost directly opposite. This meant from 8-5 all day we had a lorry being filled with earth from the garden being worked on. The lorry very conveniently for them then used the cottage drive as a turning point every hour or so to be able to get round the steep turn to get up the hill. Not the owners fault but be wary, it looked to me as if the rear garden of that property was being prepared for building works or some significant landscaping for some time to come.
So onto the cottage itself. On arrival, ants all over the kitchen worktop. Seemed to be coming in from the brickwork underneath the kitchen window. Good start.
Bedrooms were comfortable with great comfy beds. That’s where the comfort ended.
In the living room there are 2 of the most uncomfortable settees I have ever had the misfortune to sit on. Hard and misshapen and very dated. Then the tv. Some dated cheap thing with a remote that danced to it own tune. Enjoy the battle with changing the volume and actually working out what is on tv, as the guide is rubbish.
Then the temperature in the house. Even in early March the owners think it a great idea to only have the central heating on between 0730 and 10 in the morning and 5 to 10 in the evening. Bare in mind this is an old thick stone wall cottage. Result, like an ice block when you come home having been out for the day.
The key for the boiler room upstairs is available so I changed the timings so we had heat all day. The last thing I really wanted was to be calling the owner up to come and do it for me as the book of the house advises you do.
The cotttage advert states fuel included for the fire, it isn’t bar fuel for 2 short fires or one long evening fire. House book states you can then go out locally to purchase more. Thanks for that, it cheeky considering this isn’t cheap in March, let alone the £2300 you’ll pay in August for a week.
Owner called on Monday and spoke to the wife. Lucky they didn’t speak to me or the report back would have been very different, hence this review now.
So on Tuesday, the weather wasn’t great so we had been cottage bound, then in the afternoon to find a random man weeding the front garden. Would have been nice if we had been notified either by the owner or the man himself. But no, he just cracked on.
Then on the Wednesday morning we then had another random man parked in the driveway blocking our car in. I was putting our gear in our car ready for a day out and this chap was strolling around like he owned the place. Maybe he did, I have no idea as he didn’t introduce himself.
I asked him if he was going to be there long, and he said he was ‘painting the garden shed, why, do you want to get out’.
I was like, ‘Er, yes please’ somewhat incredulous.
So there you have it, great spot, cottage is very dated and in need of some serious updating. Just be careful that there is literally nothing there bar the expensive pub to walk to, or you will be driving everywhere. It’s not cheap and it’s about time the owners reinvested some of the money coming in to upgrade. When you look a previous reviews you can see visitors have alluded to some issues, but it appears little has been fed back to sykes, or if it has it hasn’t been acted upon.