My wife and I went to this cottage for a long weekend for what was said to be “peace and tranquillity” – we were sadly VERY disappointed ! Thus, although the advertisement shows nice pictures and describes a nice setting etc., it is what the advertisement doesn’t say that caused us to have a miserable time.
For example, before you even reach the cottage, you have to negotiate the variously described access road (“1.5mile unmade road”; “The farm track is uneven in places”). Neither of these truly reflects the truth - the road can be roughly split into three, 0.5mile sections. The first and last sections are fine, but the middle, approximately half mile section would do justice to an off-road assault course for 4 x 4's, tanks etc. ! Not only was the road extremely steep and with no discernible passing places and a steep drop on one side, but was full of enormous potholes, jagged rocks etc. through which it was very difficult to find a route that did not mean the bottom of our vehicle being scraped. As to the implied suggestion that this is all compensated for by the fact that the road "affords beautiful views", this is in our view clearly meant to mislead, as there is no opportunity to take these views in, with 100% concentration being required on negotiating the next hurdle in the track. And, all this was on a nice dry, sunny day - what it would be like on a wet, windy or icy day, I dread to think!
Therefore, not only did this NOT get our short break off to a good start, but also meant that we could not face doing this part of the entrance twice every time we wanted to go out of the farm and so were virtually forced to stay at the cottage for the duration of our stray, but also meant that both of us spent the whole of the period we were there, worrying about how, and if, we would be able to get out safely at the end of our stay - not exactly designed to enable us to relax, this being the main purpose of our trip.
Then we come to the cottage itself and its location, facilities etc. It consisted of a dwelling adjoined at one end by the owner's farmhouse and on the other end by a derelict barn, with another, partly converted cottage sticking out of the rear of the cottage. Hardly I think one's impression of what the 'cottage' consisted of from the pictures and descriptions given! And then, about 10 metres opposite the 'cottage', there was another, partly run-down barn that had within it a Clubhouse, with bar and TV etc., for the residents of the approximately 50 berth, static caravan site just down the lane from the cottage! As the cottage had no frosted glass etc. in ANY rooms and many of the windows looked out onto the main courtyard towards to 'Clubhouse as well as the main courtyard', we hade to keep most of the curtains closed to maintain some sort of privacy during our stay.
Then we come again to the place being for anyone wanting "peace and tranquility" ! Our stay was effectively for 2 full days (Saturday & Sunday) with us arriving on a Friday evening and departing on Monday morning. On the Saturday, there was, throughout the day, constant noise from the courtyard right outside the cottage, with various cars, vans, lorries, quad bikes and a strange looking, loud, off-road vehicle (being heartily revved up on a number of occasions) and then of course, in the evening, the Clubhouse opened and we had people coming and going from that late into the evening. Mercifully, the Sunday was a lot better, with only a few cars and vans coming and going, but by then, effectively half our holiday of 'peace and tranquility' had been ruined.
Turning next to the outside facilities i.e. The "small, private, pretty, patio". Well, this turned out to be small OK, but it was overlooked by part of the owner's lawn (and in future will have two windows of the part-restored, next door cottage overlooking it when the conversion is finished), was far from pretty, being very dull and rather overgrown with weeds etc.. It had in it a large, metal table, painted blue but with a lot of green (moss, verdigris ??) in it with 4 similar blue chairs in various states of disrepair and stability.. There were no cushions for the chairs, so they were very uncomfortable to sit on and there was no sign of the promised BBQ. Then there is the "large" or "extensive " shared lawn. This is a piece of grass, about the size of that you might expect in the average detached house and NOT what I would class as 'extensive'. It had on it a broken swing, various other childrens toys along with a line full of washing. The lawn was not fully enclosed (which was not claimed), but which we had hoped it would be as the cottage was said to be dog friendly. Hence, we needed to always have our dog on the lead, particularly once the owner told us that just recently they had lost one of their own dogs that went out one day and never returned!
With respect to the interior of the Cottage, we found it quite roomy, bright and clean. There were a few complaints and omissions that probably a person renting any property are likely to find and that, if it had not been for all the above criticisms, we might have regarded as fairly minor and probably easy to remedy. Thus, in the Kitchen, although there was a nice new Microwave, there was no microwave cookware to use in it and the Oven, although working OK, has seen better days. Other equipment in the Kitchen was all very nice. There were no cleaning cloths etc. that would have helped cleaning down surfaces etc. The hard, wooden seats in the Kitchen could do with some cushions and perhaps a couple of upright chairs (with cushions) and a small table wouldn't go amiss in the large sitting room. The TV in the Sitting Room was NOT a Freeview TV, being one of the older analogue sets which could only pick up channels 1 to 5, when it was working (which it didn't on the Friday evening - we did try to raise the owners, but could not get in touch with them). However, it worked OK for the rest of our stay. There was also no Radio that we could see and when we saw what was necessary to get the WiFi each time we wanted to use it (my computer could see no WiFi signal, so it presumably meant that this was only switched on, at request rather than being available 24/7), we decided against trying. The bedrooms and en-suites were very nice and the only comments we would make about these is that the TV's in both bedrooms were so small, that they could not be seen very well at all from the bed - they really need to be much larger-screened versions and that there were no loo brushes or other cleaning equipment in either en-suite. Finally, we soon found that leaving any of the windows open, as we normally like to do, was not such a good idea as this allowed the sewage smell that wafted about the site form time to time, to get into the cottage.
So, as I am sure anyone reading the above will be only too well aware by now, we are VERY upset about this weekend break, which purported to offer us the chance of peace, quiet. privacy and tranquillity but which in our eyes and I believe most others reading the above account, will think of more as a complete nightmare ! In the end, we were just pleased to ‘escape’ from the cottage in one piece and back to our own house where we have more ‘peace and tranquillity’ than we found at this cottage.
