Last Minute Cottages in Alston

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Stephen - Verified booking

  We stayed for 3 nights.

  The location is perfect a good base to visit the surrounding areas. Central to both the northern lakes and Pennines. The village of Alston itself is a short 2 min drive to a public car park and nice tea rooms and Alston hall is good for a sit down meal. The cottage itself is beautiful. Facilities we’re great , everything you would need was provided, washer dryer iron hoover. Plenty of towels a nice welcome pack for our dogs. As a site and a location I would give it 10/10 The BAD part unfortunately after 1 night I received contact that the owner had told the agent that we had a party , that we were over occupied with 9 people and that we had set up out door lightning. The truth was when we went in to Alston on our first night the local eating places were booked up so we bought some food from the co-op. We cooked it and decided to eat outside in the lovely garden on the picnic table. We commenced eating around 630. Our party consisted of 3 male adults 2 females and 1 child and 2 dogs. We finished around 815 as the sun was going down and there is an outdoor socket I placed a table lamp outside to give us some light as we cleaned up. There was no music no alcohol and we were in the rear for less than 2 hours. The lady who called us from Sykes was really nice and advised it was probably a nosey neighbour who had reported to the owner the above fallacies . Unfortunately this really cast a dampener on the rest of our trip. We felt like we were being watched and scrutinised by the owners of the other cottages in the site. I wouldn’t place the blame on skyes or the owner as they have protocol and insurance and continuing to have relationships with the people that actually live in the location. However the fact remains I wouldn’t recommend booking this cottage as we personally had a bad experience. Despite its beauty and location.

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• Jacquie - Verified booking

  All in all, a pleasant stay.

  Beds were extremely comfortable, with crisp white linen, and lovely views. The lounge was large but cosy and well appointed easily accommodating 6 people (although there were only 2 of us). The kitchen was very well equipped. A few niggles now but I guess it's difficult for the owners as we learned they live in another part of the country so don't see the visitors book. On arrival, in driving rain and wind, getting the key safe open was really difficult. It's clearly broken, same issue when trying to close it up on departing. The grass in the garden was something of a mine field due to dog mess not being picked up, I don't envy who has to cut it but my diary dog would not step on the grass. Unfortunately the shower head was awful, covered in mould, as were many of the tiles round base of the shower. There was also lots of debris down the side of the cushions on sofa so maybe missed when hoovering. The description said fuel for heating supplied but there was only 3 logs and kindling although it has been made up really to light. Maybe I misunderstood. Some of the crockery could have been cleaner as had to wash 2 plates and saucepan. However, we're aware that the owners are intending to upgrade the cottage over the winter so I hope these niggles will be sorted. Please also leave instructions for things like where to put rubbish, where the heating controls are, where to buy logs etc, as when we arrived there was no heat on and it was freezing and dark. Once the thermostat found, the heating was very good. The views from the cottage are beautiful and it's literally 5 minutes in the car to Alston. The neighbours are also very friendly.

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• Laura - Verified booking

  The cottage is well equipped and the biscuits/coffee/milk was a nice touch.

  Decorated to a nice standard and the cleaning was ok. Overall this is a nice place to stay, we chose this place mainly due to the paddock for the dogs, but unfortunately our dogs escaped through the broken fence As soon as we arrived we let the dogs have a run in the paddock there was a hole in the wire fence which my 2 dogs managed to find straight away to get into the next field and chase the poor sheep. Luckily they have good recall and came back very quickly but it could of been a lot worse had it of been different dogs. I found cable ties near the fence so the owners are aware of the issue and I managed to temporarily fix it but this certainly should of been checked before we arrived especially knowing we were bringing dogs. Despite this we did have a nice stay. There was no fire starters or kindling which we had to go out and find so that was a bit of a disappointment especially during cold nights.

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• Gillian - Verified booking

  When we stayed here there was a ladie underneath us, and omg did she have problems!

  All she done was bang the doors all night long and we never got any sleep. We had enough so we left early and as we was packing our cars she thrown a pair of her knickers at us, and omg we was shocked. We did not feel it was safe as she clearly had issues. Tony and Susan offered another week end stay for free as a gesture of goodwill, which was so lovely of them. We have just came back from staying there again and had a peaceful chilled stay. Massive thank you to them. We loved it there and we will be going again well long as that unhindge women is not there again haaaa. Sorry I no she won't be lol but we will be. If you want to go anywhere with beautiful views walks and amazing I would definitely recommend staying here. Thank you again xx

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• Sam - Verified booking

  We loved our stay at Parker’s House.

  The house was really clean & presented very nicely and is in a beautiful location. The beds were super comfy and the lounge is very cosy in the evenings. Great to find a house that facilitates for 3 dogs, we spent a lot of time in the garden as the weather was beautiful and the dogs loved sunbathing on the patio. We didn’t use the paddock due to the ground being a bit uneven and some items of equipment/rocks/wood, didn’t want to risk my very excitable dogs potentially injuring themselves while sprinting about. This didn’t affect our stay as the garden is more than ample and the local walks are fabulous. Would definitely stay again and have already recommended to several friends. Thank you for a lovely stay!

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