Dog Friendly Apartments in Melrose

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Ian - Verified booking

  At very short notice we were informed by email that building work was being carried out and therefore parking at the property was no longer available.

  At no point did anyone have the courtesy to let us know that the former parking place immediately adjacent to Pear Tree cottage was going to be used for loading building materials into two skips. The noise started on Monday morning at 8am. After we contacted the NTS office to ask for information we did receive a prompt reply and apology. However, we were told that the use of the skips would finish probably by Tuesday and definitely by Wednesday. We were also told that builders had been asked not to load rubble into skips until 10am, or create undue noise. In fact the work continued until the end of the week and on the Tuesday morning the first skip was collected at 8am. We understood that the repair work was important and necessary but we felt that it would have been courteous to let us know in advance that such building work would be taking place and to have kept us informed of the continued loading of rubble by dumper trucks into skips throughout our stay. The loss of parking was inconvenient and difficult because there are almost no parking spaces in Abbey Street readily available and the nearest car park is often full since it is regularly used by visitors to the abbey and town, and cyclists who arrive by car to ride the 4 Abbeys route, as well as parking lots for overnight motor homes. Pear Tree cottage is lovely but our holiday was marred by the fact that the promised parking became unavailable at short notice. In addition one had the courtesy to inform us that the building work would create noise and dust immediately outside our entrance. This holiday was to celebrate our joint 70th birthdays and we are disappointed that neither care nor consideration was given to informing us fully of the impact of the building work.

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• Anita D C - Verified booking

  We left the cottage cleaner than we found it.

  The bedroom needed dusting and the dishwasher wasn’t working properly. The water didn’t heat up to a sufficient temperature to clean the dishes. There were dirty dishes in the dishwasher when we arrived, possibly put on but not checked. The most distressing was the workmen who arrived at 07.30 on the day of our departure and asked us to move our car. They told us they had work to do for the National Trust. It was raining heavily so my husband offered to move it as long as we could bring it back to pack at 09.00 They said this was no good as they needed time to set up their equipment. They stood and waited at the bottom of the steps until we left. This was unpleasant, unnecessary and stressful. We had understood we had access to the Priory garden but it ruend out this was only during opening hours 10-5pm the same as any member of the public. It would have been lovely to sit there in the evening as there was nowhere else. I am truly sorry if this is all gloom, we have stayed in lots of National Trust Properties in York, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and this was such a disappointment.

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• Julie - Verified booking

  The cottage is very pretty and in a great part of Melrose.

  The views over the garden are beautiful. Whilst we enjoyed the heritage aspects of the cottage there are items that could be improved. The bathroom really needs to be completely upgraded. Even in an historic setting it's good to have modern sanitary facilities. The bedroom needs to be re-considered as the layout is impractical. For example, there's nowhere to stand and dry your hair with a mirror. In addition, there is no wardrobe or even clothes hangers. Instead there's a rather large cupboard with shelves. This made it difficult to hang anything and we had to go out to buy some hangers and use hooks in the kitchen. Finally, the living room seating, particularly the sofa is small and not very comfortable. In addition, we were unlucky with the weather and the living room was very cold. This is probably due to the three windows, which could benefit from secondary glazing. The key collection instructions from the vendor need to be updated as we were all over the place trying to get the keys and it turned out they were actually adjacent to the front door of the cottage.

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• James - Verified booking

  Quaint little property in great location, but several issues, all easily fixed took away from our enjoyment.

  Apart from the bathroom, there is not a mirror anywhere in the property for hair and makeup etc. this is an essential which has been commented before but no action taken. In the bedroom there is no facility to hang clothes on hangers, again mentioned before and unacceptable and even a free standing rail would suffice. In the kitchen the grill pan was thick with grease and both grill and oven require proper cleaning. There are two new oven trays supplied which are in great condition which is not surprising as they are too big for the oven. We were not about to clean the cooker, so did not use it. Other than a small hand brush and dustpan there is no floorbrush to maintain the property, and if the Henry vaccum is used it emits such a stench that it literally makes you gag. Needs replaced or properly sanitised. What should have been an enjoyable break was spoiled by the above issues which have been ignored by Sykes and The National Trust. Totally unacceptable.

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• Anne - Verified booking

  Pear Cottage is warm and cosy and is situated in an excellent position for walks from the doorstep as well as being in the centre of town.

  The views from the windows are lovely, next time we hope to have a walk in the gardens which were closed for the winter. We found the sofa in the lounge to be too low for us to sit on without struggling to get up again but we managed with the two other chairs in the room. The kitchen was well stocked with equipment for cooking a meal when not eating out although the overhead light was too dim, I would suggest LED lights which are much brighter and also low energy. Also, another set of cutlery and plates would remove the need to do the washing up so often, saving more energy. The bed was very comfortable, in fact, the whole bedroom is a lovely place to sit and relax. The switch for turning off the cooker jammed on the last day and would not switch off, I'm sure the cleaners will have reported that though. All in all, we had a lovely week's holiday and hope to return again in the summer.

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