English Country Cottages

...the wonderful opportunities that the English countryside has to offer. I am a big fan of weekends away within the UK, and I enjoy staying at B&Bs, which offer a reasonably priced, more personal, value for money option than hotels. However, the problem with B&Bs is that they only really serve as a base, with the many owners not being willing to have guests in the rooms during the day, or the rooms being too small to comfortably accommodate this. As ...
...different, and both booked through English Country Cottages.

WHAT IS ENGLISH COUNTRY COTTAGES?

English Country Cottages is a holiday booking company that showcases a huge variety of cottages. The cottages are all privately owned, but English Country Cottages manages the bookings for the owners and advertises the cottages all in one place, making it very easy for owners and prospective guests alike. They also ensure that ... more

These days, it is so simple and inexpensive to travel abroad that it is all too easy to overlook the wonderful opportunities that the English countryside has to offer. I am a big fan of weekends away within the UK, and I enjoy staying at B&Bs, which offer a reasonably priced, more personal, value for money option than hotels. However, the problem with B&Bs is that they only really serve as a base, with the many owners not being willing to have guests in the rooms during the day, or the rooms being too small to comfortably accommodate this. As such, a great alternative is the cottage holiday. I’ve been on two such breaks in the past couple of years, both quite different, and both booked through English Country Cottages.

WHAT IS ENGLISH COUNTRY COTTAGES?

English Country Cottages is a holiday booking company that showcases a huge variety of cottages. The cottages are all privately owned, but English Country Cottages manages the bookings for the owners and advertises the cottages all in one place, making it very easy for owners and prospective guests alike. They also ensure that all the cottages within their portfolio are up to similar standards of cleanliness, comfort and safety. They produce a brochure each year (available through most travel agents – it is coloured dark green if you need to spot it on the shelves) listing the properties available and they also have a fully functional booking website at www.english-country-cottages.co.uk. They also have brochures and websites featuring Irish cottages and cottages on the continent.

CHOOSING AND BOOKING YOUR COTTAGE

There are a huge range of cottages available and I found the website to be the best option for choosing one to suit my requirements. The search facility is excellent and you can search by region – for example the Lake District, Cornwall or The Cotswolds, by the number of people that the cottage needs to sleep, and by other, more specific requirements, such as whether the cottage has an open fire, whether there is a pub within walking distance, whether the cottage has a swimming pool/children’s playground and whether pets are accepted. In my experience, any search, no matter how specific, threw up a good range of results in a variety of price ranges. All the cottages have a photo of the outside, and many have a selection of photos of the interior, a detailed description of the accommodation and features, a list of the facilities and appliances provided (such as dishwashers, washing machines etc.), and a summary of attractions and activities in the area. There is also a list of the nearest services, such as petrol, supermarket, cash machine etc.

There really is something to suit everyone. Some cottages are geared up for families with a second bedroom obviously designed for children. Others have bedrooms of similar sizes, making them more suitable for couples or groups of friends. We even came across one which only slept two people but had a living area that could be converted to a dining room seating 30 people! A lot of the cottages are on farms which is lovely for anyone who likes animals or wants a real, first-hand taste of country life, getting away from it all to somewhere quiet.

Do choose your accommodation carefully, depending on what kind of a holiday you are after. Our most recent cottage had two bedrooms, a lovely master bedroom and a smaller, children’s room with twin beds. It would have been ideal for a family, but not suitable for two couples as you had to go through the master bedroom to reach the second bedroom, and the second bedroom was decorated in such a way as to appeal to children. Also, we had planned to stay in by the fire for most of the weekend, and the living accommodation was just the right size for the two of us, but if a family had been planning to stay in the seating and space was limited and it would have been cramped, unless the family was just using it as a base for sight seeing and not planning to spend much time in the cottage.

The standard cottage break is a week long, but the majority of cottages offer short breaks, although these are, as you would expect, proportionately more expensive. The short breaks also tend to be standardised – some only offer three nights from Friday to Monday, others offer two nights starting on Friday or two nights starting on Saturday.

The website offers an availability checking facility so that you can ensure the cottage you want to book is available before completing the booking form. Booking can then be done on line and is very straightforward and trouble-free. Insurance is available at an additional cost of £6 and this is well worth having, as it is very comprehensive, covering accidental damage, personal liability, luggage, and even the breakdown of your vehicle up to a week before departure.

A couple of weeks before your holiday you will receive a confirmation of your booking through the post. This gives all the details of your cottage, directions for how to get there, contact details for the owner (and their representative if appropriate), check-in/out times and instructions of what to do on arrival. In the case of our most recent booking, we were asked to telephone the owner a few days before departure to arrange collection of the keys. The owner was incredibly friendly when I telephoned and was very flexible with the check-in and out times, as there were no bookings on either side of ours. We also received a leaflet from English Country Cottages on how to enjoy your cottage break safely. The company seems incredibly safety conscious and the leaflet covered things like ponds, farm machinery, children’s play equipment, night storage heaters and even water temperatures.

WHEN YOU GET THERE

You will have made arrangements in advance for collecting the keys to the property, and generally this will mean that you will meet the owner at the time that you arrive. In both cases where I have been on cottage holidays, the owners have been extremely friendly and welcoming. On our most recent break, there was a slight problem with the heating, but the owners telephoned us beforehand to warn us and went out of their way to sort everything out for us. There was a loaf of homemade bread and some homemade butter there to welcome us, two bottles of wine and some orange juice, plus the basic kitchen essentials such as tea, coffee, sugar, flower, salt and pepper. A log fire was roaring away in the grate, and they showed us where to get more logs if we needed them. In some cases, there is an extra charge for more logs, but there was not in this case. The cottage was actually next to the owners’ farmhouse, and although we knew they were there, and would have helped if we needed them, they left us very much to our own devices.

The cottage we stayed in was fully furnished and every little detail had been thought of. There was a TV and video and a good selection of video tapes there for us to choose from, plus a couple of board games. There were candles and matches in a drawer and an excellent range of kitchen utensils, crockery and pots and pans. The whole place was spotlessly clean and the owners seemed to have taken a real pride in setting it up. This is similar to the benefits of Bed and Breakfast, where everything is much more personal than a hotel, as the owners know it reflects directly on them if everything is not up to scratch. There is the added insurance of knowing that English Country Cottages obviously prescribe a set of standards to all of their cottage owners, and if these were not met, the cottage could get withdrawn from their portfolio, leaving the owners with the problem of how to get guests in the future. Everything seemed very safe, with good handrails on the stairs, a safety guard in front of the fire and a fire extinguisher and blanket in the kitchen.

There was an English Country Cottages visitors book on the table with comments from previous guests, and a folder prepared by the owners containing information on local attractions and recommendations for pubs and places to eat, including sample menus, plus instructions for the appliances in the cottage and details of how to contact them in case of any problems.

PRICES

A cottage holiday can really be as expensive or as cheap as you want it to be, and prices varied hugely, even for cottages in similar areas sleeping similar numbers of people. As a benchmark, our two night break in a two bedroom cottage, sleeping four people, but with a small living area, cost us just over £200. Larger cottages are good value, particularly if you are sharing the cost amongst a group of people. On a previous holiday, I went to a cottage with a group of 6 friends and we spent around £80 each for a 3 night break. There is a scale of prices on the website and in the brochure, and each cottage falls into a particular price band. Although the cost works out more expensive than a Bed and Breakfast or a cheap hotel, you are getting better facilities (i.e. a whole property, not just one room) and you can spend all day there if you want to.

Proportionately, longer breaks are better value, as obviously by offering short breaks the owners are then not able to let the cottage for a week at that time of year.

RECOMMENDATIONS

I would wholeheartedly recommend a cottage holiday to anyone, and English Country Cottages is an excellent company to book with as they are efficient, they choose lovely cottages, provide a high level of useful information to help you choose your ideal destination and they ensure that their cottages are maintained to a high standard. You are guaranteed a warm, hospitable welcome, as the cottages’ owners are not big, faceless companies, but usually private individuals (often farmers) who take a pride in offering a lovely property to their guests. There is the bonus of it being self-catering accommodation, so you are free to come and go as you please and do not have the added holiday expense of eating out.

There is truly something for everyone. My most recent break was for a romantic Valentine’s get-away for two, but you could equally find a cottage suitable for a group of friends wanting to spend some time away together, for several couples who want to do something different, or for a family wanting a self-catering break. Many of the cottages are happy to accept pets, so it is also a great option for anyone with animals who does not like to leave them in kennels. A short break is a chance to cocoon yourself in cosiness and get away from it all, and a longer break offers the opportunity to explore the English countryside.

PS If you are looking for a romantic break then I would wholeheartedly recommend the cottage that I have just been to in the Cotswolds as it was lovely and cosy and the owners could not have been more welcoming. I haven’t given specific details in this review, as it is about the company as a whole. Leave me a comment if you would like more details of that particular cottage.
 

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