Dog Friendly Thetford Holiday Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Deborah - Verified booking

  PROS: The barn is a beautiful old house, with tons of rustic charm and character and the central atrium entrance is particularly stunning.

  It is quite large so plenty of space and we liked that the bedrooms were at opposite ends of the building ensuring privacy from the in laws who visited and stayed with us for 4 of our 7 night stay. The beds were super king and the bedding was really soft and comfortable. The private secured little garden is great for the dogs and there were a further 2 really lovely areas where the dogs could play. The kitchen was well equipped and the sofa and TV area very comfortable. The owner was helpful when we needed a fan in one of the rooms and she was also helpful in recommending some pubs and places to visit. There is a utility area with a ton of tourist information flyers and maps, which I found useful when planning days out. CONS: We found dog hair (not ours) all over the sofas and cobwebs in the ceilings on the wooden beams. Whilst we appreciate this is a old barn, this could have been easily rectified with a deeper clean between guests. The front door double height glass entrance had dozens of dead flies stuck to the glass :-(. The front entrance was also tired with weeds and piles of leaves which again could have been swept up and tidied between guests. My husband also didn't appreciate being 'told off' by the owner for using the wrong hoover to clean up sand from the back seat of our car :-(. The owner did in fact tell me that they weren't able to afford the rates of local cleaners so they have taken to cleaning the property themselves. The property is located in a quiet residential road but there is nothing else nearby other than residential properties. The nearest pub was several miles away, and there were no shops within walking distance. This means we needed to drive everywhere with quite considerable distances and times involved, i.e. a day trip to the north Norfolk coast was a 3 hour round trip! This was a big issue for us as we spent so much of our time driving but we do appreciate this was mostly our fault as we didn't sufficiently note the distances involved and we didn't quite appreciate how large Norfolk was (so not a criticism of The Barn or Sykes).

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• Alan - Verified booking

  Haybarn is a lovely warm accommodation, ideal for our cold, wet weeks stay Nov / Dec.

  It has a spacious open plan comfortable lounge, dining room and kitchen however the cooker is virtually unusable as all the markings on the facia of the cooker have worn off so you don’t know what control knob does what. The Lounge has an electric fire for extra heat, this is a fan assisted convector heater and the fan is quite noisy. Haybarn has a lovely shower room / toilet / wash basin. The shower has a large cubical with a wonderful shower. The twin bedroom is adequate with a wardrobe and hooks on the bedroom door for hanging clothes. The most disappointing room of the Haybarn was the double bedroom due to the lack of space having to walk sideways along the bed to get in and out of bed. There is NO wardrobe here, what was we assume would have been the wardrobe now houses the central heating boiler behind a locked door so you have no control over the central heating, the heating fires up and wakes you up at 6-45am. There is a chest of draws and only 3 hooks on the bedroom door for clothes hanging. As the chest of draws is quite large these could be removed and a wardrobe could be installed in its place As there was only my wife and I we were able to use the twin bedroom for dressing / clothes storage. I hope my comments above are looked upon as constructive but my main concern was having the central heating boiler in the bedroom, it might be perfectly safe but very annoying. I am aware that some things in my review have been mentioned in previous customer reviews, i.e. the problem with the cooker, and it’s disappointing that they have not been addressed.

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• Alison - Verified booking

  We had a fantastic early autumn break at The Haybarn.

  We received a very warm welcome from the owners on arrival. I was taken aback as to how beautiful the property was. Very tastefully decorated and immaculately clean. Massive kitchen with everything that I needed for my week away. It was great to have a lovely hot shower each morning too. The property is really "in the middle of nowhere". This was all very nice and it is why I picked the cottage in the first place, however it was a bit scary at times trying to walk two dogs along the country lanes trying to dodge local motorists who are obviously too familiar with the area. Thankfully the very nice owners allowed me to exercise my dogs in their garden and paddock, though as it is working farm my boys had to be on the lead at all times (but that did not phase them - they loved it just being in the countryside!!). We loved saying hello to the horses each morning, and my youngest dog was fascinated with the hens. We managed to get out most days, and visited various National Trust properties, spent a day in the Norfolk Broads and went on a boat with the pooches, and we also took a day out to Cambridgeshire to visit a National Trust property and an ancient Abbey. Thank you so much for allowing us to come and stay in your beautiful cottage. It was a brilliant holiday, and I would really hope to return again soon - possibly in the summer, when we could take advantage of sitting out on the veranda and watch the day go by, and seeing the local wildlife.

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• Sandra - Verified booking

  We stayed a week at the Haybarn, we had been expecting a nice quiet stay as this 'let' is in the middle of nowhere.

  It turned out that the property we stayed in was the ground floor of a two story building, the first floor appears to have no sound proofing between the two floors, the hard flooring of upstairs magnified every sound. We were awoken each morning around 05.50hrs as the upstairs occupant got up and ready to go out, they would arrive home around 21.30 each night.(maybe supply them with a pair of slippers?) The main bedroom houses the water boiler in what once was the only wardrobe, so whenever the hot tap was run, the boiler fires up, I suspect that the boiler is also linked up to the upstairs accommodation as the boiler fired up at various times throughout the night. The accommodation is supposed to sleep four but there is only one tiny wardrobe and nowhere to store suitcases, the main bedroom is far too small for the double bed, we have bruises to prove how small the gap is between the bed and the radiator. There was only two of us, any more would have been a real squeeze. WiFi is rubbish, although not necessarily the owner's fault, as the signal to our phones was poor in that area owing to the remote location. A washing machine is supplied, but there did not appear to be anywhere to dry or air the washing. On a positive note, the shower was great and the water pressure good. Heating was good (once we had turned the radiators on). It was nice seeing (and hearing) the male pheasant on the lawn each morning.

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• Laura - Verified booking

  Lovely and clean cottage, nice open plan living space, a very small double bedroom with larger twin room.

  Soft mattresses. Kitchen had most things, pots pans etc but nothing like oil, kitchen roll etc, so take your own. Only 1 toilet roll provided. Office sign said closed most of the time, not sure if someone would have answered if we rung. Lovely hot powerful shower, no bath. Worth noting this is not the only holiday cottage/apartment on site. The loft room above is rented, we had quiet neighbours above but it must have wooden floors, footsteps were very loud as were door handles. There is also a cottage opposite. So you're not alone when out in your pjs and coat weeing the dog! Lack of basic additional extras, for example, no soap or hand wash in bathroom. No toiletries. Heating only on Oct - April, only controllable by owners. A blanket would have been nice to take the edge off. Odd activities took place on the grounds, power washing cars at 8pm the first night, car mechanics with engines running and revving Saturday afternoon. Lovely stay but wasn't the peaceful solitary retreat we were hoping for.

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