We stayed in the cottage as a family of 4 in August 2020; our children were 6 and 9 at the time of our visit.
Our first impression of the cottage was lovely, a delightful setting, beautifully decorated, private parking and just away from the hustle and bustle of Whitby but near enough to walk. The views of the harbour and abbey were stunning and the Co-op was a short 3 minute walk away - perfect!
The cottage itself was very well equipped, in fact the kitchen probably had more than we were expecting with washing up liquid, foil and kitchen roll and dishwasher tablets amongst other things readily and available.
Whitby itself was extremely busy, almost too busy given the circumstances surrounding Covid but that is not the reason for the 3 star review. This review is based solely on the cottage itself.
With it being an upside down building the bathroom was downstairs and was built at the rear of the cottage into the hillside; this meant no windows to let in fresh air, as a result, with 4 people in the cottage the atmosphere was always a bit damp after our daily showers - in fact it took me three days to dry a load of washing. We followed the instructions with the fan and the heated towel rail but you can’t compensate for fresh air. Due to the building being in the middle of a terrace type row, the cottage was also very hot and not easy to cool down even with windows open.
Now for the noisy bit - the cottage is built directly at the side of the railway line, this was perfect for watching the steam trains pass by during the day, it was almost magical to see...the only problem was the 06:15 and 06:30 Whitby to Pickering trains that passed each morning, and because the cottage it next to a pedestrian crossing, the trains are required to sound their horns upon their approach, this was a less than ideal wake up call each day! The other issue was the large harbour car park directly opposite. On the weekend the car park was visited by numerous young adults until 2 o’clock in the morning, there was a lot of shouting, screaming and cars racing/performing donuts outside the cottage which was a terrible shame.
All in all; we had a nice holiday but I don’t think we would return to this cottage, which is a shame because the owners have clearly spent a lot of time making it an enjoyable place to stay.