Large Dog Friendly Cottages in Hampshire

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Beverley - Verified booking

  A beautiful cottage, literally a couple of minute’s walk away from the forest.

  Loads of space for a large family or a friendship group. We actually spent all our time in the large conservatory and garden and only went into the front room/snug on one occasion, and the dining room a couple of times to play board games, but we were blessed with the weather and I imagine the living room with a very large wood burner would be amazing in colder months. The house was really well stocked, with everything you could possibly need for a comfortable stay; the owners even left us a bottle of fizz and a tub of choccies, which was a lovely thought. There were plenty of lovely quality toilet rolls too! I know this seems an odd thing to comment on, but so often we go to a property that has frankly cost a considerable sum, to be left with a couple of cheap rolls for the whole week! Bedding and towels were luxurious and smelled lovely and fresh and clean, and the beds and pillows were comfy. I personally didn’t like the position of the bed in the master bedroom, as one side was against the wall - fine for youngsters with sturdy bladders, but middle aged ladies such as I, who need to get up for a pee, have to either wake up the other half, or clamber over them! A minor gripe, however, and one which won’t affect the majority of people! The garden was beautiful, and our dog absolutely loved it; he particularly enjoyed having cool shady spots to lie when it got too hot, but there was plenty of sun all day. It was large and completely secure, and there were a couple of relaxing sun loungers in addition to the garden table and chairs. We loved the games area with darts, pool and air hockey; our only tiny niggle was that it wasn’t lit, so as these evenings are now drawing in quickly, we were unable to play as often as we’d like. The location is great, as mentioned previously, almost in the forest, and only 20-30mins away from beautiful beaches. The village centre is only 10 mins walk, and there is a great selection of eateries and all the usual shops you would expect/need. The Swan pub is literally across the road, and is good for drinks but many better places to eat in town (in our opinion). The owners were in contact and were very responsive, but as they had thought of absolutely everything, there was nothing that we needed. We chose this area randomly, based on the pictures of the house, and I’m really glad we did, we had a lovely stay and would definitely recommend both the location and this specific property. A lovely stay, thank you.

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• Debra - Verified booking

  Great location for exploring the New Forest, Stonehenge, Winchester and close enough for a day trip to the Isle of Wight.

  There’s a handy Nisa supermarket within easy walking distance. Plenty of parking space for 2 cars and a camper van. Great sized house for 5 adults and 3 teenagers (who appreciated the upstairs games room), while downstairs there were comfortable sofas and large dining table with plenty of space for everyone to sit. Storage options were good in each room (although no wardrobe in the downstairs bedroom) and the shoe area in the entrance porch was handy, as was the large double hall cupboard which had plenty of hanging space for coats. The kitchen was a lovely size and it was great to have extra space at the small table and breakfast bar and the double oven was fab for cooking for eight people. The house file contained very clear information with lots of suggestions for the area and the keys were very clearly labelled. Great outdoor seating and some garden games which got used between the showers! There was also a BBQ but sadly the weather wasn’t nice enough to make use of this. Niggles: The tap on the kitchen sink had to be turned on very carefully otherwise you got soaked each time you used it. A washing up bowl would also be useful. Kettle needs to be descaled. It would be helpful to have a selection of larger sized saucepans when cooking for eight people. The downstairs bedroom door sticks and can be difficult to open. The toilet seat in the upstairs family bathroom was broken and the holder for the shower head would not fix in position and just slid back down the pole. The mattress in the upstairs ensuite bedroom was hard and uncomfortable and one bedside lamp could not be used: it was not near a plug and the lead was not long enough to reach one. Missing a lock on the downstairs toilet (door through to the utility room). Overall, despite the above niggles, we were very happy with our stay and would still rate it 4 stars.

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• Amy - Verified booking

  This is a lovely property, ideally situated for exploring Dorset and the New Forest.

  Our boys and dog thoroughly enjoyed the spacious house and garden, in particular. The house was very comfortable & there was everything we needed & more in the kitchen. On our first day we found that the television in the snug didn’t work. It switched off intermittently & the next morning unfortunately did the same. The contact number given by Sykes was for a company that looks after the property on behalf of the owners. My husband left a message, but didn’t hear back so had to chase them up later in the day. We were told someone would go round to look at the television the following day. Having returned to the house we were unable to tell whether anyone had been in, so again rung that company. They said they spoke to the maintenance person who thought the tv probably needed replacing. They’d also spoken to the owners, who said they’d been there the previous week & it was working ok then. We were asked to video what happens to the television, which we did & this was emailed to that company again. We never heard back from them or the owners, so felt the duty of care was lacking. Having a second television wasn’t the end of the world, but it meant one room in the house couldn’t be used, as intended. Our biggest disappointment was in having to spend part of our holiday chasing up an issue & not getting it resolved. It would also have been nice to have heard from the owners at some point, even if only to apologise for the inconvenience. We understand that they aren’t local, so you lose an element of personal touch but at least this issue wasn’t anything major.

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• Salina - Verified booking

  We had issues with boiler throughout stay.

  had to reset it several times a day to get any heating. this really needs looking at by the owner and its not acceptable for guests to have to keep faffing about with it as constant faults flashing throughout the day. there were pots left in dishwasher many of which were still dirty we found slugs in kitchen every morning- i know its an old house but some copper tape around kitchen side door would stop that. there were rats in the garden ( around the side)- we opened the kitchen side door near utility and we saw two in what looked like the old coal shed- you need to put something down to get rid of those. filthy stained bath upstairs which was unusable- no one wanted to sit in it. the slope down from gate to conservatory covered in slime so one elderly person in the group slipped quite badly walking down it the shower room downstairs basically flooded whenever anyone used the shower- needs a longer shower screen or some kind of run off point. trying to get in and out off the main road was a challenge in the cars. sorry all so negative but for what we paid we expected a better maintained holiday house- all the ones we've rented from Sykes in the past have been perfect. sadly not this one.

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• Judith - Verified booking

  The photography gave a misleading impression of the size of the property and garden it was smaller than we anticipated although we appreciated the extension.

  Bedroom 2 with double bed was wedged against the wall, so no space to get out that side. There was not enough room to store bicycles as stated the garage was locked. The combination locks for the side gate and bike shed had seized and needed lubricating with WD40 and were still stiff to roll. The keysafe was difficult to operate and there were no instructions on how to close it once the key had been removed. The letter box kept falling off and although we tried screwing the nuts back on it repeatedly fell off. The non stick coating on the pans was badly worn and we didn't use them. The chrome lavatory brush handle had rusted. There was a shelf unit/cupboard in the bathroom which had broken and was incomplete. The shelves in the white cupboard in the bathroom had fallen down and needed fixing back in. Some pictures were loose in their frames. The bath was slippery because it didn't have a non slip base we bought a non slip mat. The dining room table was too high and the chairs too low. There was no instruction manual to reset the hot water, so some of us had cold showers. There was a loud drilling noise at night of unknown origin which could be heard in the 2nd bedroom and front lounge.

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