Dog Friendly Cottages 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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• Confirmed Guest - Verified booking

  1. The property was very well equipped and very clean. 2. The location and views were wonderful. BUT 3. 2 of the bedrooms were through rooms ie you had to go through one to get to another which was not made clear in the description of the property and was not suitable for different households. We had 6 households in the 6 rooms. Our group was not happy with this. 4. The water pressure was very low such that if more than one shower or bath was run at the same time, there was no water or it ran cold, especially upstairs. We had 7 adults all wanting showers after coming in from a walk or a cycle, and in the morning, so we had to go one at a time. It would have been totally unworkable with 12 which the house could take. I know there is a water shortage but a business like this with paying multiple users, needs to find an alternative means of water supply if as I suspect, this is a private spring supply. A borehole for example. 5. The track was actually terrible, and is just getting worse with continual use. We are used to driving up forestry roads and were prepared for it but there was one particular pothole which was dangerously deep and could not be avoided. There had been forestry work closeby so perhaps it had been made worse by machinery. But the owners need to go and look for themselves. It has reached an unacceptable state now. For such an upmarket and expensive property the access must be improved.

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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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• Confirmed Guest - Verified booking

  Wow. What an absolutely gorgeous house. It was spotlessly clean and the views are simply breathtaking. We had a wonderful week of sunshine and made the most of the house and everything the area had to offer. All the rooms are tastefully decorated - not super modern, but traditional and pleasant. What you see in the photos is absolutely what you get. My only negatives were that, one, the road leading up to the house is full of potholes and, quite frankly, not fit to have cars driving up and down it. For the money being paid to stay here, I'm sure something could be done about it. If there was anything that would put me off staying here again, it'd be this. Two, we were given the number for a house keeper but struggled to get replies from her. I sent a WhatsApp message on day 1 of our holiday and it's been read but still no response (I'm now home). When we arrived at the property, we struggled to get into the key safe to retrieve the keys. We tried contacting the house keeper but, in the end, had to phone Rural Retreats and see if they could help us. That said though, we all loved our stay here, and would thoroughly recommend the house and Rural Retreats to anyone wanting a superb base near Oban.

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