Mr Evans
August 2020
Honeystone Cottage was everything we expected.. We had no serious complaints and only a couple of constructive observations (see below). The cottage was larger than we had expected, and it sleeps up to six very comfortably. Contrary to some other reviews, we found the beds very comfortable.
We were there in August, so we can't comment on the heating. But the water was hot and the showers were excellent. The downstairs living area was comfortable although we didn't try the wood-burning fire. The adjacent cooking/dining area was very spacious and all the kitchen equipment was more than adequate, including cooking utensils, crockery, cutlery and basic essentials.
Outside, the courtyard between two of the three cottages provides more than enough parking. Meerbrook is a short walk from the cottage and we ate twice at the Lazy Trout in the village. On the first occasion, we were not too impressed with the standard of the food. But the second occasion was a transformation. Excellent. The Three Horseshoes is an alternative pub at the junction with the A53. It about a mile and a half away—too far to walk, especially in the dark on the relatively narrow country road—has better food in our opinion. The car park is large and it's a good choice if one of the party doesn't mind driving.
On the slightly negative side, the lighting in the kitchen/dining area was a bit gloomy and a few more lumens would be appreciated. However, the big problem with the cottage is the very poor wifi, despite the presence of a range-extender in the kitchen. Most of the time it was unusable and one of the reasons could have been that all three cottages were occupied and the number of people using the already inadequate wifi could have overloaded the feed. Two of our party had work to do, so the poor internet service was a disappointment and an inconvenience.
To make matters worse, cellular reception is poor from Vodafone, although excellent from EE (which were the only services we had access to, others may differ). We had taken a Vodafone 5G Hub, with unlimited data, and this would have been the answer if the signal had been other than poor. Anyone with a similar EE hub would have been been in clover. In view of the sleeping capacity of the cottages, a professional broadband installation with a business-level service would more than repay the relatively low investment.
All in all, despite the two minor quibbles, this cottage exceeded our expectations and it proved to be excellent value for money. We would definitely return, despite the rainy week which kept us indoors a lot of the time.