New Year Breaks In Scotland

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Confirmed Guest - Verified booking

  We enjoyed our week in Barscobe House. It has a lovely prospect looking over the countryside, set in a well kept estate, and a large secluded garden with a mowed lawn. There are walks starting from the house e.g. the Holy Linn waterfall, and up into the hills. It was reunion for three generations of a family, coming together from Edinburgh, Yorkshire, London and Maine USA. It was helpful having the caretaker and housekeeper staying on the estate to help with queries. We also used a local agent, who had good local knowledge. The kitchen is very well equipped: it is difficult to know what one is going to find in a holiday let, but this property has the sense of a much loved family house, well designed for catering. There were many baking trays, cake, bun and loaf tins, a blender, food processor, hand mixer, ice maker… A real old fashioned larder, 2 fridges (one with a freezer section) and a chest freezer. Ample cutlery and crockery etc. Good recycling arrangements (glass to the nearby village, or local supermarkets). Two washing machines, a tumble dryer, an old style wooden ceiling pulley for clothes (in a separate scullery). Two dishwashers. Some of the chairs and furnishing are wabi-sabi, but we found this made it comfy, and matches the house. Beds comfortable, nice cotton bedding, plumbing good, very toasty hot press to dry/air clothes. We already knew that Castle Douglas is a foodie town, and it didn’t disappoint: three butchers (we used Grierson’s, excellent), bakers, a greengrocer, and we ended the week ordering a very good fish supper from Moore’s (with a rigid insulated box and a foil-lined bag, they stayed hot enough on the 25 minute drive). The nearby village of Balmaclellan has a friendly community shop for messages like fresh milk. There are mobile fish van shops in the region too. We were lucky with the weather, but the house has a snooker table (pool too? Not my strong suit!) and lots of indoor space should the weather break - we did consider playing “Sardines”, but actually spent a lot of time exploring local attractions for outdoorsy types (some of my family has an affinity for cold water, and swam enthusiastically in Loch Ken), with the coast not too far away. We were sad (in a way) not to need the fires, that’d be cosy indeed. The “dark sky” area meant that on clear nights we could see the Perseid “falling stars”. The wifi dropped out occasionally but this wasn’t a problem for us. The caretaker was on hand on the one occasion the router needed rebooting. We understand that infrastructure improvements are coming soon. It is an interesting old building (early 20th century) that must be challenging to keep from disrepair. The windows alone are a daunting task. The hefty security deposit is unusual in these days, but I see why it is imposed, and it was repaid within the week. The entry time of 5 pm is the latest we’ve ever been offered (due to cleaning schedule, I think), but we built that into our arrival time. We had one electric car in our party: the provision at the house is currently via a standard indoor socket using one’s own trickle feed cable: rather slow, and the surcharge seemed arbitrary (not metered, rather high) - but we did opt to use it as the fast chargers in Castle Douglas were in use/out of order: the infrastructure will presumably eventually catch up (and I don’t just mean at this property). Highly recommended.

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• Easta - Verified booking

  Finding a holiday property that could accommodate our expanding family had proven difficult until I spotted Marl House.

  The price was refreshing sensible and the amount of space inside and out was wonderful. The garden was as huge as it appears in the photos, then we found 3 further large lawns off to one side. We could have had football, cricket, croquet and badminton taking place in each lawned area at the same time! The house itself had large bedrooms, plenty of bathrooms, dining rooms, games and table tennis rooms as well as a sitting room. Lots of areas to quietly read a book or chat. The kitchen was huge with a massive utility room attached. In total there were 3 large fridge freezers, two washing machines and two tumble dryers, all of which were well used. We cooked and shared meals together each day and baked biscuits and a cheesecake. All the equipment you needed was in the kitchen and generously supplied. There was no local food delivery to the house from supermarkets and the nearest shops were small. We had brought first meals and staples with us and shopped at Newton Stewart on the journey to the house for fresh produce. We also had 2 successful Amazon deliveries to the house during the week. On Wednesday tea time the mobile fish and chip van visits Garlieston, 10 minutes up the coast. The bay there is sheltered and shallow, you can walk out quite far and the water is still knee deep, the children spent hours in the sea and played on the beach. Other highlights were feeding the red deer in Galloway National Park and visiting the Otter Pools on the Ranger road, also travelling to the most southern point in Scotland, the Mull of Galloway and going up the lighthouse. The adults also enjoyed the whisky distillery tour and the gin tasting.

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• Jenny - Verified booking

  We booked this property as it was advertised as a high spec property.

  The location, the views and the space were all excellent. However, as the previous reviewer has stated, the maintenance of the property is very disappointing. In addition to the broken shower, the lack of lightbulbs, the broken microwave and oven seal, the broken sink and the lack of toiletries mentioned in the previous review we also encountered a number of issues: the property was unclean throughout including a stained and orange mould covered shower curtain, the sofas are ripped, there are multiple chairs missing in both livingrooms, two dining room chairs were broken, the owners had a number of packages delivered while we were there which took up a lot of space, there’s a leaking vent which has been covered in brown tape, the carpets are stained, the curtains are hanging off the wall in one bedroom and the kitchen worktop is in a general state of needing upgraded. The most upsetting part of the property was the state of the decking, a number of the boards were very rotten and bits were sticking up. As we had 2 toddlers with us that made it unsafe to use. We have raised these issues with Sykes and provided photographic evidence of all these issues (which we are unable to add here but will on another site) and have eventually received a 10% refund but we are very disappointed and feel unable to book the property again next year.

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• Chris - Verified booking

  I've used this same property on 10 previous occasions.

  It's a stunning location and a lovely place, it's well fitted out and has a lovely open space in the ground floor area for dining and relaxing. However, over the last 3 years there are a variety of maintenance issues that have not been addressed and they are slowly increasing. At £3000.00 per week, you would expect these issues to be addressed, not just left. Upstairs The left bedroom no bulb in bedroom light or in the lamp. Upstairs bathroom shower out of order for last 2 years. Upstairs bathroom no plug for sink. Only 1/3 of a toilet roll left in bathroom Downstairs The microwave wasn't working & the the oven seal was hanging loose. The tumble dryer filters were full of sand we cleaned them out but needs doing properly. There are no plugs in several sinks in the ground floor bedrooms. Replacement toilet seat that’s been fitted in one room but is loose. Two bedrooms were left with just half a toilet roll, no spares were left. We replaced toilet rolls and washing up liquid as none was left. Many of these are minor things but not what you would expect for a high end property costing around £3k per week.

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• Patrick - Verified booking

  A State of the Art Holiday Home.

  Warm friendly place with lashings of hot water for all the guests all the time which is unusual in the Hebrides. Myself and my friends have been visiting North Uist annually for over 30 years and this house in Clachan Sands is probably up there with the best but its also the ‘most expensive’ house we have rented by far. Its interior design is quite American in its set up shouting the merits of open plan living with huge picture windows taking in the wonderful views. As a pure observation, we are all log burner owners & the central cool looking log burner in Clachan Lodge either needs replacing or over hauling / servicing as the door does not close / seal properly and it would be nice to be left some wood & turf / coal to burn as there was none. We will return to North Uist and this house will be right up there if we have enough guests , it’s a perfect space for 5-6 adults and 3-4 kids, in my learned view of the Island, a keen eye must be kept on budget - pricing as otherwise it will price itself out against hotels & establishments.

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