Dog Friendly Cottages In Kingham

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Catherine - Verified booking

  Stayed for one week in Benfield with parents and our toddler.

  We SO wanted to love this place after the great reviews on here and the pretty pictures. However, as charming as the cottage was, we couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed with a few elements. Let’s start with the good stuff. As I said, the cottage is utterly charming and the rural decor makes it welcoming and cosy. The downstairs space is great – it was nice to have ‘zones’, so in a big group you can separate off either into the front room, the dining area or the conservatory. They’re connected enough to not be isolating, so you can still chat from each room, but you’re not all cooped up in one communal area. The beds were really comfortable. As other reviews have commented, the road is busy and noisy, making it impossible to open the windows on a hot evening, but with some ear plugs, the less light sleepers among us had a good night’s sleep. The location was perfect for enjoying the many delights the Cotswolds has to offer. We did way more than we anticipated because there was so much on the doorstep and Stow-on-the-Wold itself is gorgeous, with lots of pretty little shops and some great pubs. On the downside, the courtyard area was unclean. Not sure when it was last swept, but the paving was dirty and the bench and cushions were filthy - making it pretty unappealing to sit out there. It’s such a shame because it could be a really great addition to the house, but at the moment it’s a real waste of the space. A large chunk of it is taken up by the Wheelie bin, which itself wasn’t quite big enough for a week’s worth of rubbish for a group of seven. Appreciate space is limited, but it could’ve been better organised. Maybe some housing around the bin. There was also no recycling bin, so everything ended up in one place. We didn’t expect there to be an Aga and no traditional oven (there’s a microwave, and mini oven in the pantry). While it was very beautiful, we had to rethink our evening meals somewhat and it made the downstairs area very hot on a warm summer’s day (it’s not advisable to turn off as it takes such a long time to heat up again). There was a wide array of crockery, utensils and cookware in the kitchen, but quite a few hadn’t been washed properly. The bathroom on the first floor has a beautiful roll top bath, but only a handheld shower head with no curtain or screen. So no matter how careful you were, the bathroom got soaked with water splashing either off the bath or your body. The bathroom on the second floor had such a low wattage bulb in it, we had to keep the door open to see what we were doing. We had a good experience with the owner - very prompt responses - and we were very grateful to be allowed to check in an hour early, but on the whole the cottage itself is currently a bit disappointing in places.

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• Jamie - Verified booking

  The property is beautiful, lovely layout and decorated beautifully.

  It was clean and it’s fully equipped too with all the crockery and cookware you’d need and we were even left a small milk in the fridge, some shortbread biscuits and there was tea, coffee, coffee pods for the nespresso machine, washing powder, dishwasher tablets, tea towels, kitchen paper - all the things I brought with me we didn’t need as it was all provided. There’s a tv in the living area and bedroom and both were smart tvs which worked great with the brilliant wifi. The hot tub is lovely, although wished it had more of a view - such as in the front garden area it’s a shame these are split areas although we obviously appreciated the privacy of where the hot tub actually is but just not the view of the iron barn next door. It’s also great that it’s dog friendly, and it’s peaceful and quite remote but still close to main parts of the Cotswolds and attractions. The only downside was the extra charge for the hot tub - this is a premium property and it’s expensive to stay here as it is and I think the hot tub should have been included in the price as it’s unlikely people who are booking this property are not going to use it - for us it was the main reason for booking this particular property. I only found out about the £50 extra charge for the hot tub 5 days before we were due to arrive, which is lucky as I would’ve been disappointed had we arrived and the hot tub not been filled. It was not clearly advertised that there was an additional charge for the hot tub when we booked through booking.com (unlike the £25 dog charge which is clearly advertised and I rang up Sykes cottages after booking online to pay that fee - had I the hot tub fee been clearly advertised I would’ve paid this at the same time or probably would’ve booked a different property where the hot tub was included). This was very disappointing and really put a dampener on our birthday celebration minibreak before we even set off

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• Dave - Verified booking

  We stayed at Gardeners Cottage for 4 weeks during a house move to Alvescot.

  The cottage is cosy, comfortable (especially the bed), quite well equipped with a large garden with wonderful views over the countryside. Good off street parking although it took us a while to understand you park adjacent to the house on the grass verges. The key safe was a bit of a challenge at first but ok to use after we’d mastered the code. If you’re bringing dogs, the garden is not contained so we used a roll of garden netting to keep ours from wondering off, or bothering the neighbours. The garden furniture is in need of a refresh, but ok to sit out on and enjoy the beautiful view. You’ll need accounts to all the streaming services on the TV as there’s no access to Freeview or terrestrial channels via an aerial. We have streaming accounts so it was ok, just not possible to scroll through channels (a good excuse to forget the TV and go for walks with the dogs!). We changed the batteries in one of the TV remotes. A note to the management team - we had the plumber visit twice to take air out of the system which was caused a lot of disturbing noise in the early hours of the morning. They came promptly the next day and rectified the problem, but I think the system needs a good overhaul in general - ou can’t shower upstairs if someone is issuing the shower downstairs for instance. Agree with other tenants that a microwave would have been convenient and the cutlery is a little tired The village is peaceful (a sleepy hollow) but it’s a drive to a shop and a decent walk to the Hare pub. Careful where you walk as one of the neighbours was upset that we hadn’t followed a public pathway which wasn’t marked to be fair. I think on balance it may be on the pricey side for what is offered and we noted that it wasn’t booked at all in July & August which is a shame. It served us well for our move. Perhaps the pricing needs looking at?

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• Dave - Verified booking

  We stayed at Gardeners Cottage for 4 weeks during a house move to Alvescot.

  The cottage is cosy, comfortable (especially the bed), quite well equipped with a large garden with wonderful views over the countryside. Good off street parking although it took us a while to understand you park adjacent to the house on the grass verges. The key safe was a bit of a challenge at first but ok to use after we’d mastered the code. If you’re bringing dogs, the garden is not contained so we used a roll of garden netting to keep ours from wondering off, or bothering the neighbours. The garden furniture is in need of a refresh, but ok to sit out on and enjoy the beautiful view. You’ll need accounts to all the streaming services on the TV as there’s no access to Freeview or terrestrial channels via an aerial. We have streaming accounts so it was ok, just not possible to scroll through channels (a good excuse to forget the TV and go for walks with the dogs!). We changed the batteries in one of the TV remotes. A note to the management team - we had the plumber visit twice to take air out of the system which was caused a lot of disturbing noise in the early hours of the morning. They came promptly the next day and rectified the problem, but I think the system needs a good overhaul in general - ou can’t shower upstairs if someone is issuing the shower downstairs for instance. Agree with other tenants that a microwave would have been convenient and the cutlery is a little tired The village is peaceful (a sleepy hollow) but it’s a drive to a shop and a decent walk to the Hare pub. Careful where you walk as one of the neighbours was upset that we hadn’t followed a public pathway which wasn’t marked to be fair. I think on balance it may be on the pricey side for what is offered and we noted that it wasn’t booked at all in July & August which is a shame. It served us well for our move. Perhaps the pricing needs looking at?

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• Sue - Verified booking

  So here is the positives- the building, stone floors, beams, pieces of beautiful furniture Negative that really ruined our holiday.

  Before we went and due to finances we planned to eat in most of the time. My husband has asthma and uses an inhaler, as soon as we arrived and opened the door there was a really overpowering smell of air freshener. There was numerous bottles of liquid air freshener containing the bamboo sticks, the smell was so strong and sweet that you could taste it when you was drinking. I removed numerous bottles, some even in plant pots of flowers. My husband really suffered with his breathing and used his inhaler several times a day. As we have been going to the cotswolds for 20 years this was supposed to be a restful time spent in the cottage but due to the smell even when I had moved the airfreshners outside we had to spend as much time as possible out of the cottage, which also meant eating out every night which isn’t what we wanted to do. Even though I moved them outside the yard area is very small so even when I had shut the door you could still smell them. I’m sure some more must have been buried in the house that I couldn’t find A few other small things there is that much stuff in the cottage you really lose the beauty of it it’s as if there has been a need to fill every space with something. There is well over 20 spoons, knifes and forks, lost count of how many bowls and coffee pots, what this also did was leave lack of space should you want to food shop and store I contacted Sykes and they was very good and offered to send someone round but there wasn’t anything they could do that I hadn’t Such a shame our holiday was ruined

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