“PROS:
Firstly, thank you for opening your holiday home to us and allowing us to have a memorable holiday at Margaret House - Come rain or shine!”
The house itself is beautiful, in an enviable location with so much right on the doorstep. The living space is very spacious, bigger than the photos make it look! It was a lovely surprise and plenty of room for our 2 littlens to spread out and play hide and seek (the mega blocks were a lovely touch). The beds are very comfortable, the bedding clean, cleanliness was to a high standard throughout! The kitchen was even equipped with plates, cups and cutlery for the littlest of people. Thank you. The water pressure was perfect for a shower/bath & the bonus of a driveway with off road parking was a HUGE help for us with luggage. Instructions laid out clearly for what to do upon departure, and how to leave the house. Underfloor heating was lovely - Myself and our 2 children found ourselves lying in the middle of the floor at one point after a chilly day out walking!
Locally, the restaurants are brilliant, child friendly and fantastic service, Pooley Bridge Inn, The Secret Garden & The Sun Inn were our favourites. The Big Shop With The Little Door is exceptionally cool! Very well-stocked and a beautiful gift shop, with an upstairs food hall, would you believe it!
Amazing walks from every direction on the doorstep and some fantastic views of surrounding hills & mountains just a short distance away. Beautiful scenery & we enjoyed stopping at the cafe/book-shop. This was a big hit for our 7 year old.
CONS: The house was FREEZING on arrival - We'd come from the cold and coming in to the house, it felt colder. The heating was switched off and it felt like it had been off for days, if not weeks. There are no instructions for the heating, and it did take a while to figure it out as some of the thermostats didn't appear to work (dining room & landing), but once it DID finally kick in and we figured it out, it did warm within a few hours and stayed warm for the rest of our stay.
The TV - Oh my goodness, we went without it for 4 days as we simply could not figure out the 4 or 5 remote controls - It was a faff fiddling with wires, trying every remote, with a constant error message about the satellite connection. After 4 days, I decided I'd try HDMI2 instead of HDMI1 and ta-da! We had TV. Once it worked, it was lovely to snuggle up in the evening and watch a little something.
Condiments - Now, I know this is not overly important - however we did have an evening of take-out and there was no salt, pepper and very little sugar for cups of tea too. In all other holiday homes we've ever visited, there's never been a shortage of salt, pepper or sugar. This is just a little something that could be fixed very quickly and we did buy our own sugar so fear not.
ROAD NOISE - Okay so it's not a MAIN road but the house is fronting on-to a road where, the bin men sound like they are inside the house at around 5am and it did make me jump out my skin as it was still dark. There were cars going up and down from 4.30am so we just simply changed rooms (the noise was only heard from the front Master bedroom). I'm not sure if the house is single glazed? The rain and every gust of wind sounded extraordinarily loud so we did assume maybe it wasn't double glazed.
The light-bulb in the en-suite upstairs needs replacing. Loose tile in the en-suite too.
There's an empty packet of cadburys fingers holding a mirror upright in the bunk bed room so be weary of little fingers as the mirror swings if the packet is moved.
Overall, would we recommend this holiday house? YOU BET! My partner kept telling me I'd found a 'gem' of a holiday home and we were very comfortable, any issue is an easy fix but better to raise it than not if it benefits future guests. Would we return? I think so!
Sam, Dan & family from Bedfordshire.
- Samantha, February 2022
Thank you for your feedback. We will take onboard your comments and seek to put them right. We have not been able to visit our house since last May due to Covid and a broken back so we rely completely on Sykes letting us know if anything needs to be sorted. Sadly none of the things you mention were reported to us so we were not able to sort them out. I can only assure you a new salt and pepper pot was ordered the minute we arrived this week. It is a shame previous guests had broken the one that was here. We have been told by Sykes that we can't leave sugar, perhaps you could explore this with them directly? The windows are double glazed and I'm afraid we cannot be held responsible for traffic noise. There were instructions laminated for guests regrading the television but they have gone missing. Once again, thank you for your feedback.
informed
Property Owner
