Big Cottages & Group Accommodation in Castleton

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Andy - Verified booking

  This is not to be seen as a negative review and I hope you take the feed back as constructive comments.

  We had a brilliant family week and the location for central Castleton is brilliant. But the property is needing some TLC. Most kitchen utensils were provided - but we are glad we brought our large wok for cooking for a family of 7. There's no garlic crusher and an additional chopping board would be good. It might be worth sharpening knives or providing new ones as the ones provided are woeful. Not a massive issue to us, but there's no gate on the fence facing the public car park which could be a close call for potentially escaping dogs when front door opened. The front door supporting brace needs replacing as it is broken and you have to lean on the door to close it. There is no key for the side patio doors (that we found). The stable door at the rear does not close properly unless you really push it and lock the door from the inside. This is annoying if you are sitting outside. It becomes dangerous for little children and their fingers. No light bulb in small room and no replacements or spares anywhere. Dishwasher needs salt to be provided - there was none that we found, so it often didn’t clean very well. Tumble dryer - doesn’t dry clothes completely dry. Accessible electric cables/wires under tv are not only visible and unsightly, but grabbable by a child unless really supervised. The welcome book is lacking any real details about managing the property itself. The bins - although it can’t be helped - were 3/4 full on arrival. There is also a lack of details for bin day collection point. I placed the green bin in the car park, but luckily I saw the bin crew at 6:30am and they said they only collect from the roadside. There is no hot tub information/ upkeep details what so ever. Luckily, we knew we had to add chlorine as the slow release container floating around had run out by Wednesday. Who knew you had to remove this when in use? I can only compare to other places I've been where staff visited twice a day to check levels. It shouldn't be down to guests to manage the safe use of a hot tub, with no instructions. There are no spare bedding or pillows (its stated beds can be pulled apart if needed which is great, but there are no extra duvets provided) there is also an under sheet missing. The curtain in the living room is annoyingly short. Cleaning, just generally could be better. It seems a surface clean is done, rather than a thorough turnover. There are cobwebs and spiders in most room corners, the worst place being above the kitchen fridge. Bathroom window is in need of repair (there was a note on the window) however the bathroom door in the same room also doesn’t close properly. In addition, the toilet seat is moving and needs to be fixed/ replaced. King size bedroom en-suite shower doors don’t close completely, and tray floods - due to blockage. Stairs are loud and need new wedges, difficult to move up and down the stairs at night time without waking others and one gets a sense that the stairs are going to collapse! Security for dogs and young children in the garden is concerning given the proximity to the main road and it is fortunate we were fastidious in supervision. We had to move any wood lying around to form a barrier to deter them from escaping, especially towards the car park side. There were many screws lying around in the rear pebbled area that we picked up following construction of the welcome cover to hot tub. It seems a missed opportunity to encompass the fire pit and grassed area along with the pebbled area into a wholly securely fenced area. The seating area along the fence in the pebbled area, along the roadside, by the hot tub is a great idea, but it is too high. It needs to be halved in height to sit comfortably on. This is by far the main area we used A seat leg was broken on the arm chair in the living room by window. We ended up balancing this many times so it could be used. The oven has a weird funny smell when in use Castleton experienced a massive power cut during our stay, so the burglar alarm needs resetting as it was beeping and there was an issue rebooting the WiFi and TV but we conquered that eventually. I come back to the Welcome pack, there were no instructions how to do any of this. A clock would be nice on the fireplace in the living room. It takes two adults to lift the hot tub lid on and off. Actually 3, the first time we used it we leant the lid against the fence, but it dropped down the back and it took 3 adults to get it out (2 in the spa). Whilst the lady cleaning the hot tub was utterly pleasant, she arrived at around 8:30am, but check out is at 10. The hot tub was being drained by before 9am, which didn’t allow any use for the morning of departure had we wanted to. Fortunately we didn't, but we were just not expecting anyone so early. Again, I come back to the welcome pack (lack of) information if 8:30 am is the norm.

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• Katie - Verified booking

  I feel I need to leave feed back in two halves.

  Good points- location is amazing, beds really comfortable, bedding good quality, towels good quality and living room furniture was comfortable. Things that let the property down- two missing gates on the front ( the dogs could get directly into the carpark or drive to main road), no handle to assist the hot tub lid lifting ( it took both my husband and I to get it back on so my parents had been unable to use it once we had left), no safe steps for older guests and a shower at outside the back door, very large amounts cobweb's in most areas, back stable door didn’t fasten together and is extremely poor repair, broken lock hanging off the inside of bedroom two along with a broken curtain tie back and broken soap holder left in the shower, shower in main bedroom not draining and leaving stood water, curtains that don’t reach the bottom of the window, no wood packs for the fire pit and lots of large lengths of wood left on sitting area so it was not able to be used.

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• Katie - Verified booking

  I feel I need to leave feed back in two halves.

  Good points- location is amazing, beds really comfortable, bedding good quality, towels good quality and living room furniture was comfortable. Things that let the property down- two missing gates on the front ( the dogs could get directly into the carpark or drive to main road), no handle to assist the hot tub lid lifting ( it took both my husband and I to get it back on so my parents had been unable to use it once we had left), no safe steps for older guests and a shower at outside the back door, very large amounts cobweb's in most areas, back stable door didn’t fasten together and is extremely poor repair, broken lock hanging off the inside of bedroom two along with a broken curtain tie back and broken soap holder left in the shower, shower in main bedroom not draining and leaving stood water, curtains that don’t reach the bottom of the window, no wood packs for the fire pit and lots of large lengths of wood left on sitting area so it was not able to be used.

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• Lyndsay - Verified booking

  Definitely not dog friendly!

  My dog escaped through gaps in the fencing 3 times, the peoperty is on a busy main road (had read a review to say this had been sorted, which it definitely has not)! So had to use items from inside the house to keep my dog from escaping and safe, then was accused of leaving the items outside when we left which we hadn't, as i personally took them in, someone took photos of this on our last day before we even left the property, as they came to do something to the hot tub before we had even left! Cobwebs everywhere in the house, found someone elses clothing behind the sofa. Shower kept blocking. The kitchen tap was faulty. Very small courtyard, no real garden. Was disturbed on day 2 by the cleaners wanting to come and clean as they'd been given the wrong day of us leaving. The hot tub kept getting faults, I had to take out the filters and clean them myself as they were filthy and looked like they had been cleaned or replaced in a long time.

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• Gemma - Verified booking

  Although we had a lovely stay at Cheshire house, the place had clearly not been cleaned before we arrived.

  Everywhere is thick of dust. Not just a days worth, more like a week or more as it’s thick. There was a dirty tissue on the living room floor which we left as didn’t want to touch it & lots of cobwebs. All the provided hand washes have been watered down. Which looks awful to be honest & there is a very dirty bath mat outside the back door which was covered in thick ice, when one of our party stepped outside they slipped on this & fell to the floor. There are little postcards stating that it has been cleaned by a certain company. You might want to look into this as it clearly hadn’t. We would probably come back if the issues stated are resolved as it’s in a perfect location & the house is a good size and comfortable.

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