Bowland Barn Lancaster, Lancashire

Stayed with family. Children, grand parents and 2 dogs. The good bits. The barn has been beautifully restored. It is in a great location with lovely views. Very spacious. Comfortable beds. Luxury hot tub and the games area is great. Very well equipped kitchen. Lots of seating areas and a lovely dining table. Close to the lovely town of Lancaster and not far from the lakes. We chose the barn due to the number of ensuite rooms and area for the dogs. Also needing some quiet family time. The WiFi worked in most areas. The not so good. The barn is attached to the owners house. The owners house has scaffolding up and looks like a building site due to them renovating it. It is not secluded as the owners also run an equestrian business across the yard. From the careful angle of photos we perceived the barn to be secluded. There is also a public footpath which runs right through the garden and yard, between the hot tub and kitchen door. We only saw a family and a couple of the footpath during our stay so not a busy one but this was January in a lot of bad weather. The hot tub is in full view of the yard. (Looking the other way we had amazing sunset views). Views from the barn were lovely but there were no curtains or blinds apart from in the bedrooms. Even some bathroom windows were bare. The large windows at night made a few of us uneasy as you couldn't see out but anyone could see in easily. The driveway to the barn is in need of maintenance. Full of very large potholes which caused scratching to the underside of our cars even at very low speeds. The fenced off area for dogs and children with football etc is great for older children to play but I would be very worried about younger children. The gate was closed by propping up a stone against it. This was fine for the dogs but would need children to be supervised at all times as at the side is a pond which is not fenced off. We had to keep the dogs on leads in all the areas other than the fenced off astro turf small area due to the chickens on the yard and sheep and cattle in all the fields. We drove to areas to walk them off lead. The wardrobe and drawer space was very limited with just 3 coat hangers per bedroom. Bedside cabinets held one small drawer at either side of the bed. The washer dryer was handy as we stayed a week but the dryer was useless. The outside clothes airer wouldn't stay up. The indoor airer was used in front of fire. Our main issue was the heating and hot water. The temperature was controlled by the owners and set too low. After 2 /3 days of asking and speaking to Sykes, he did turn it up however some bedrooms didn't have heating at all and some the radiators didn't seem to work. Underfloor heating didn't seem to on apart from in the bathrooms over night. The fire was lovely when lit and full but only if you sat in the seats directly opposite. It was such a large place it needed the heating on too. It wasn't the coldest when we were there with outside temperatures being between 5°and 10° so it could get worse. It would have been helpful to not have the heating locked and be able to alter the temperature ourselves. The wood for the fire was given to us but again we had to go and ask every day for this and even the kindling to start it off. More than half of our group were sat with blankets over them every evening due to being cold. The couple were however very welcoming and friendly. Always around the yard. Hot water is not on a combi boiler. It is a tank so when the tank is empty the hot water runs out. This happened on our first night when 5 went in the hottub, only 3 had hot showers and 2 people ended up with cold showers. We became more careful after then so didn't all go in at the same time. Because of this we didn't use the baths. The hot tub was not quite as warm as others I have used and cooled down when you were in it even more. We were told that this is the hottest it goes. Overall we enjoyed our time away and were wowed by the barn and area but it could have been a lot better.

Bowland Barn, Lancaster. We booked the Barn for a family get-together at the end of August for four nights. We needed to sleep thirteen people (and a dog!) so this was pushing the property to its limits. It met our requirements in every respect. The barn is spacious, with a number of quiet corners, a well provisioned games area, a couple of comfortable lounge areas and a huge well-equipped kitchen where we could all eat together: we all felt we had plenty of space in a very relaxed environment. Our age-range was from 10 to 84 (three generations) so the outside facilities were very fully used: basketball and footie goal, and the hot-tub! Everyone agreed that Bowland Barn was really top class as a letting. It's set in beautiful countryside that can be reached easily. We will all have many happy memories of the time at the Barn. The owners, Phil and Claire are very welcoming and on hand should there be any queries. The ideal hosts!

Thank you so much to Phil and Claire for having us. We had the most amazing week staying in their beautiful barn conversion on the top of the hills surrounding Lancaster. We could see morecambe Bay and Blackpool Tower from the hot tub. The kitchen was well equipped for 10 people. The added bonus of the pool table with air hockey and table tennis kept the kids well entertained. Along with board games aplenty and the basket ball and football nets too. I would definitely recommend this place. They also have space for a horse if you are an equestrian lover. The barn is in the perfect setting for dogs walks, hiking and hacking out. Cannot recommend this place enough! So beautiful!