This was a well appointed cottage, but there were several issues:
On arrival it was clear that no one had been staying in the cottage recently - confirmed by housekeeping and by the many spiders and their webs that we walked through inside the house. There were spiders in every corner of the house. The windows had also not been cleaned in quite some time and there were webs inside and out spoiling views. On finding the vacuum cleaner, to do something about this, it was in a filthy state and unusable. It had clearly not been attended to in recent times. Housekeeping did fix the hoover but made no attempt to rectify the cleanliness of the windows outside. We appreciate that old houses attract spiders, but this was ridiculous. There was an old damp mop left inside the kitchen larder that made the kitchen smell musty - not usable for hygienic cleaning purposes. The beds had not been made up with any duvets inside the covers. We were not there during the heatwave so had to make up these too. It should also be pointed out that the house is on a cut through road between the A429 and A 3400. This meant that a significant amount of traffic, including tractors and lorries, passed the house and garden (which is directly beside the road) with great regularity; so not the tranquil location we had hoped for. There is also a loose manhole cover directly outside that made a loud knocking sound every time a vehicle crossed it - so all the time. The pots and pans were all marked and damaged and need replacing. The tap in the en suite bathroom sink constantly trickles, and to get the walk in shower to work you have to turn the sink taps on full.
Sadly this was a disappointing holiday cottage stay.
