Dog Friendly Cottages in the New Forest

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Rebecca - Verified booking

  The property was excellently located; a short walk into Lymington and with pubs (the Borough Arms and the Monkey Brewhouse) located at the end of Lower Buckland Road.

  The property was exceptionally clean - very high standards maintained with this. The beds were also extremely comfortable, the kitchen was extremely well equipped also. The downstairs area was really useful for cooking and then bringing to the table - this also has a small portable radiator which was extremely useful in the cold weather and where the conservatory looses heat very quickly. The modern interiors were lovely and the sunny extension was wonderful, even in rainy weather. There's plenty of storage space and the rooms have their own bathrooms which was extremely handy. The information packs were very thoughtfully laid out and had everything that we needed during our stay, including useful pointers on local places of interest. There were a few aspects that could use improvement. When we arrived the whole property was extremely cold and we had to leave the heating on for a long time for the property to heat up which was probably less than economical. There was a small portable radiator which did help but it might have been useful to have this on a remotely controlled timer for out of season guests to make sure it's not so cold on arrival but still make cost savings with it being switched off when empty. The first floor bathroom had an air evacuation flap which was loose and kept banging in the wind all through the night and also the shower temperature control was extremely difficult to control - stiff and very sensitive! In the top bedroom, we noticed half way through (as we weren't using that level) that the light was left on in the bathroom, probably during cleaning between residents. This is probably me being overly fussy as the kitchen was otherwise very well equipped, there wasn't an espresso machine which is usually found in most holiday properties (there was a french press though!). Finally, the cleaning supplies were quite limited (dishwasher tablets - we did leave some for the next guests which we purchased) and the cloths weren't really able to make sure we could wipe down properly before we left as requested in the check out pack. For future residents, I'd just be aware that the staircases are very steep. We attended with our dog and the poor thing did fall a couple of times because it was quite steep. Additionally, the garden isn't really very dog friendly, we were advised the back of the garden isn't fully enclosed which is fine. However, there is no grass and most dogs usually will only want to go on grass so if you are bringing a pooch, you might want to take them to the grassy patch a minute from the property in order to toilet.

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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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• 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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• Jo - Verified booking

  This property is really nicely decorated and equipped.

  It has parking (probably easiest for one car only due to the telegraph pole) and is only 5 minutes walk into Lymington. We have stayed several times due to it's convenient location near to a relative. There are just a couple of niggles though. One is that the temperature for the shower in the top room can't be turned down more than a degree as the mechanism is jammed. So, if you don't like very hot showers you have to use the other ensuite. That is inconvenient and bot always possible. We have mentioned this before in a private message to the owners via Sykes cottages but it hasn't been dealt with, which is a shame. The other thing is that there are no instructions for the TV and BT box so it is difficult to work out how to use it. Finally there was no welcome pack which is very unusual. Just a small pack with some essentials like bread and milk, biscuits or a bottle of wine is common and makes your guests happy. If these things were sorted out then it would definitely means 5 stars across the board.

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• Alexander - Verified booking

  The propert was large and well appointed however the bathroom and downstairs toilet are very small.

  The biggest issue we had is that this property is advertised as dog friendly, as soon as you arrive and look at the information folder the first thing you see is a list of rules like no dogs on furniture, fair enough. Don't let dog upstairs, no stairgate provided. Don't let the dog go to the toilet in the garden, as children play in the garden. Get the point but as a responsible pet owner I always clean up after the dog, it would help if there was a hose in the back garden to wash down where the dog had been, noticed hose outside on the drive way but too short to get to the garden if the dog were to go in the garden. Good news is there is a nice little park 2 to 3 mins away. So dog friendly, I'm not so sure!! Overall a good property but disappointed with the size of the bathroom and list of dog rules.

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