“Good location, although a car is necessary for absolutely everything, despite descriptions of local walks.”
There are no paths off site, so the only walks are through the small site, and immediate neighbouring site. You can walk about 300m out and back, which may suit for a small dog. The Manor House and grounds are out of bounds to people staying on 'our' two sites, and are signposted accordingly.
Likes:
Comfortably furnished with decent-sized beds. TVs in both bedrooms, with integrated DVD players, and a Smart TV & DVD combo in the living room too. The sound of the stream outside was lovely, but ...
There are no paths off site, so the only walks are through the small site, and immediate neighbouring site. You can walk about 300m out and back, which may suit for a small dog. The Manor House and grounds are out of bounds to people staying on 'our' two sites, and are signposted accordingly.
Likes:
Comfortably furnished with decent-sized beds. TVs in both bedrooms, with integrated DVD players, and a Smart TV & DVD combo in the living room too. The sound of the stream outside was lovely, but if you are put off by the thought of that noise, closed windows block the sound fully. The WIFI was good, and we were able to watch YouTube & Netflix comfortably on multiple devices. We loved the selection of board games (playing most of them) and DVDs too. So, we were well entertained. We paid a little extra for this property because it has a washing machine (£10 extra compared to other properties on the same site without one). This meant we could pack light, and with the airer supplied we could put the clothes outside to dry in the evening / overnight.
Dislikes:
The shower pressure is abysmal, which is a surprise given the pressure of the water through the taps. I have the exact same shower at home, so my thinking is that the pressure has been throttled for some reason. The bath is a standard size and was fine for everyone else, but at 6' 6", it wasn't an option for me.
If you're at the property through the day (luckily we were only once), there is a loud dehumidifier running for a solid six hours from 10-4 (11-5 BST).
Checkin / out. This is on the verge of ridiculous. We couldn't check in until 5pm and had to be out by 9am. As a family of four, we had no option but to leave the night before. I can only assume the same cleaning company services most of the properties on these sites, driving this rule. But even with this rule in place, the cleaning company is not doing their job properly, and they're clearly taking too much on.
Some of the plates, cutlery, the baking tray, and a couple of the mugs were filthy with either wet or dried-on food. The larger frying pan was still coated in dirty oil. I don't think it takes the brains of an archbishop to work out that if a guest has to strip the beds, pack their car, wash up and dry up after a rushed breakfast, then vacate by 9am, things like this are going to happen. We didn't clean the stuff we didn't use, so I presume that's down to the next guests to deal with.
Sykes, please get a grip of this and ensure your guests are treated reasonably! We've used your site for many stays over the last few years, without any issue whatsoever, but basic processes like checkin / out times should not be a lottery, or they should be clearly published beforehand.
Overall, decent value for money due to the very low price we got this for, but I wouldn't have made this booking with the negatives in mind.
If the things that bothered us wouldn't bother you, you'll love it, but this is an honest appraisal to make you aware of the things I wish we'd been made aware of beforehand.
