We are 2 active older ladies who stayed here at the beginning of May. It is ideally situated for walking Hadrian's Wall Path, which is what we were doing.
It is not a "cottage", but an upstairs apartment (with a large cupboard under the 20 stairs with the boiler, washer/dryer and a small table top freezer). It is attached to the owner's part of the house in the converted mill. You can hear everything through the connecting door in the lounge. The photograph used in all the listings is misleading, as it shows the owner's house and not what you are renting. What you see is definitely not what you get.
The apartment is spacious and everything was very clean. The beds were very comfortable, but the sofas in the lounge were not, unless you were over 6 feet tall.
It is an inconvenient property if you have a lot of kit. You have to park your car up at the end of the lane next to the main A6 road out of sight of the property, and lug everything down, squeezing past the owner's 2 cars. This parking area backed on to what looked like the local fly-tipping spot.
It states that bed linen is supplied. However, we were staying for 2 weeks. We knocked on the owner's door to politely enquire at the beginning of the second week if we would be getting a change. We were addressed with "YEAH, WADDAYA WANT?, from an upstairs window. The male owner yelled and ranted at us, refusing to come down to the front door to speak to us. We were told "There's a washing machine. If you want clean sheets, wash them yourself!". We both looked at him in shock and disbelief. He seemed to take even greater exception to our shocked looks and told us that because of "the looks on our faces" even if he had been inclined to supply a change of bed linen, he wasn't going to do it now". When we said that if we had known that we would not get a change of bedding we would have been happy to bring our own, his reply to that was that we "had booked through an agency, so that was nothing to do with him".
Our problems with the owner were probably caused by our not accepting the fact that certain lights weren't working, especially in the bathroom. They tried to fob us off with nonsense about them being "a bit temperamental because "they are energy-saving". The bulbs just needed changing. Also a bedside lamp had a dodgy connection and the spotlight in the kitchen area "had never worked since they had been there". The word electrician sprang to mind.
This was also a very late booking, just a week before going. Consequently the agency had it listed at a fair size discount. We had not looked for a discount, it was just there. Presumably he also resented the lower price paid plus the fact that he would have to pay the agency fee. Instead of being so nasty, he should have been grateful that someone had actually booked the property, which otherwise would have been vacant.
Fortunately everyone else we encountered on this holiday was helpful and lovely. People would start up conversations as soon as you just glanced in their direction. We had a wonderful holiday when away from the property, and we would definitely recommend the area.
