Last Minute Cottages in Bamburgh

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Stephen - Verified booking

  The cottage on our arrival was ridiculously hot, there were radiators turned up to the highest setting in every room, which was odd because it wasn’t cold outside.

  This made the cottage far too hot for about 24 hours and ruined our first nights sleep. The doors to the cottage don’t close easily. I couldn’t close the front or back door, both required my husband to do it with force. The wood in the doors has warped due to the damp and age of the cottage. There were small brown moths in every room, mainly around the windows, but also on the walls. We had to dispose of 50+ moths throughout our stay, it was horrible. Every morning we’d wake up to more moths in every room. There was also a lot of spiders, but this wasn’t as much of a problem as the moths, because they don’t fly about your head. The beds and pillows were uncomfortable and made sleeping difficult. But what really spoiled a good nights sleep was that there were no curtains to draw across the windows to keep the rooms dark. The light was streaming through some very old blinds. One of the blinds in the main bedroom had a broken pelmet when we arrived, the bits of which were on the tall drawer unit in the corner. We didn’t spend a great deal of time in the cottage because of the issues mentioned above, but if we had wanted to, the one sofa, angled oddly away from the tv wouldn’t have made things easy for my family to gather around anyway. We feel really mislead by the photos on the website and the description of the cottage. With the Smeg fridge freezer and the smart kitchen worktop and units, you expect a little bit of comfort and luxury and what you get isn’t like that at all. The floors were dirty, so we had to walk around in crocs all the time. Some of the other cottages around ours had very obviously had money and time spent on them to make them far more acquit accommodation. We looked online when we got home and found that for the same cost as your cottage we could have stayed in far nicer places and so we feel really let down. We actually came back a day early on Friday because our daughter was so upset at night, not wanting to sleep in a room full of moths and spiders. It’s the first family holiday we’ve been able to afford in two years and the only holiday we’ll have this year so the disappointment is huge. We now need a holiday to recover from the holiday, for all the wrong reasons. Really we feel we should get some compensation, but in this day and age we won’t hold our breath.

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• Karen - Verified booking

  Thank you for making arrangements for changing the bed sheet and pillows in the top bunk bed.

  We enjoyed our stay and the welcome pack and wine was great. The pictures do not do the cottage justice in terms of surroundings. It was much more than what we expected. Feedback based on our stay: 1) The toilet bin lid was broken when we arrived and the toothbrush holder was not working properly. 2) The were mice running in the attic all night which made it difficult to sleep, I totally understand it’s a converted barn and mice will always make their way into an old building, but it’s not great when you are a light sleeper 3) The lack of an actual clothes line or rotary line was frustrating when we wanted to reuse our bath towels and costumes. The drier was unable to take more than one towel at a time to dry and it wasn’t economical to use. 4) The doors in the sitting room were too stiff to open onto the small seating area 5) The toilet button stuck several times but bounced back again after a while 6) We were thrilled to have been able to use the tennis court 7) The directions to the cottage were difficult to follow after we took the road off Broad Street. The directions should have read take the first right as the directions which we followed led us to Elford Farm. We did not follow the postcode as you advised. And coming from Seahouses we always ended up arriving back at the cottage and owners house on the right not left.

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• Laura - Verified booking

  Beautiful cottage, clean and comfortable in a lovely village and next to a very good pub.

  The furniture was good quality and the beds extremely comfortable. We were impressed by the immaculately clean rooms and the thoughtful welcome box. The downside was the smell coming from the cesspit next to the cottage. On our second day it was so bad we couldn't open the windows. My elderly mother wanted to go home bit decided to percevere with it. We couldn't sit out in the lovely garden on nice days because although not constant, the smell was on and off all the time and you could taste it. We would loved to have used the wonderful bbq facility but couldn't face doing our food in that smell. It was a real shame because it did put a dampener on our holiday with my elderly parents, 81 and 86 years old. Plus this was the most that we have spent on a cottage over past few years. My mother couldn't sleep very well because she couldn't have the window open. I note from previous comments on trip advisor that the owners have been told about this problem before which makes it even more disappointing because nothing seems to have been done. I dread to think how bad it was in the heat. Like I said, the cottage was amazing, clean and comfortable but please please please do something about the awful smell. I do hope that they contact me with how they are going to resolve the issue

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• James - Verified booking

  The shower broke on our first day.

  Reported to yourselves and handyman arrived within the hour. He decided that a replacement part was needed and that he would deal with the owner to have the shower repaired and that I would be contacted by the agent, I.e. Sykes. There has been no contact at all and no repair to the shower. There was little evidence of a cleaning or maintenance regime. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere. For example a duster had been used at the front of the tv stand but at the rear of the tv stand an arc of dust was the main feature. Tops of cabinets, the shower head and ceilings were home to spiders' webs. The lounge furniture referred to as plush in your property description was in a state of disrepair with collapsed springs, exhausted cushions and generally worn out. The welcome pack did not contain any logs for the log burner nor were there any logs available in the outbuilding open to us. It will be interesting to see how you deal with this review/complaint as customer service and following up is absent and resolving problems seems to be an anathema.

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• Mrs Patterson - Verified booking

  This is genuinely a lovely cottage which I'm sad to see is up for sale; this is our second stay here. There are a few improvements I'd make, such as more cutlery and a better selection of glasses and oven dishes, but these are really minor details, and if not heeded would not spoil your stay. The location is FABULOUS but comes with a draw back over the parking, some of which was most, most inconsiderate from others who were also on holiday. I think a "please leave space for residents of Samphire Cottage" sign, in the window, would not go a miss, although equally that would not be mandatory to abide by, but it really has been quite tricky at times. Would I stay here again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Is there room for improvement? I do think so. I do hope that any sale of this property still allows for a holiday let. It's genuinely lovely, and superbly placed, and we would absolutely go back. The communication from Original Cottages was also very good, but please allow for a 10:30 vacation of the property?

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