“Fantastic beautiful tranquil place to go”

Response from the manager Thank you so much for this 5 star review, it's wonderful to hear you enjoyed your visit. Do come back again soon!

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not TripAdvisor LLC.

“Fantastic location and property”

Response from the manager Thank you Amanda for your amazing review. We were thrilled to read this and to hear how the cottage, our gardens, Boot and the Eskdale Valley ticked all the boxes for you. We look forward to welcoming you again sometime soon. Best wishes from all of us at Select Cottages.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not TripAdvisor LLC.

“Relaxing, Picturesque escape!”

“Absolute perfection”

“We think of this cottage often and look forward to returning!”

“The perfect getaway”

“Cosy cottage in a beautiful location”

“Idyllic setting!”

“Delightfully compact, cosy cottage in an idyllic setting”

“Not a good holiday in a very small dark cottage”

Response from the manager Reading this review is deeply upsetting. My staff and I bent over backwards for these guests. We could not have done more for them. I will respond to all the points in this review but please first read the review written before this one by guests who stayed in the cottage the week before. How can their experience have been so different? We often have guests arriving late at night and therefore provide really detailed arrival information on where to park, where to find the keys and how to locate their cottage. On the table inside the cottage is a welcome letter and a house-book with more details and information on everything guests will need for their holiday. My housekeeper Amy and maintenance caretaker Bob are there at the cottages every other day and their phone numbers and email addresses are in the house-book and arrival information, as are mine. My staff and I are available 7 days a week for our guests and we pride ourselves on the service we provide for our customers. The photos are accurate and we have many guests who love Whillan Beck Cottage, it is cosy and romantic. No one has complained that is dark. There are double doors for privacy and light, both downstairs and upstairs along with roof lights and there are windows on 3 of the 4 aspects. Our stairs are regulation width and pitch and no one has complained about our sofa cushions before - see sofa photo on my website. There is a storage cupboard under the stairs for suitcases. Yes the cottage is small and we advertise it as such. No one has ever complained about the bathroom, nor bumping their heads and my website photos clearly show the headroom in the bedroom is fine. The bed was brand new 4 weeks before these guests stayed. The mattress is a really comfortable 5 star quality king size mattress. I was therefore extremely surprised to be told and read that they thought the brand new mattress was too hard. Being located in the heart of the Lake District National Park we are well equipped to respond to any client requests and immediately had a mattress topper available for the guests. My housekeeper checked the TV which was working perfectly, the guests had not read the instructions on how to use the Sky TV controls. The bedroom has French doors which have solid wood lockable exterior doors and double glazed lockable internal doors with attractive French lace voile and thick curtains. The views from this window are exquisite and there are traditional 400 year old stone steps outside. The views are of the 17th Century pack-horse bridge, now a pedestrian bridge and the Whillan Beck and waterfall beyond - see our website photos. Many guests love to leave the skylight window slightly open to be lulled to sleep by the sound of the gently tumbling Whillan Beck after which the cottage is so aptly named. We had a top of the range Worcester Bosch boiler installed less than two years ago with a 10 year parts and labour guarantee. This should not have broken down but it did and being a warm week in the height of summer most guests would have taken this in their stride without it being a drama. I asked Bob to go immediately to see if he could find the problem. He called both the installer and manufacturer and was told they might be able to get an engineer to us the following day which was a Saturday and they would know by 10am Saturday. Bob then called our local plumber who came straight away, he did not have the right part and being Friday evening would not be able to get the part until Monday. I was born in New Zealand but have lived in England for over 30 years. I love old buildings and I converted the Farmhouse and barns at Bridge End into cottages for which we received accolades from the Lake District National Park planning authorities. I lived in the Lake District for 8 years in our Farmhouse, was then based in Cheltenham and then Nottingham. The guests actually used my landline at the cottages to call me on my UK number. I had a long conversation with the guests that evening, I was told to get the problem fixed immediately or they were leaving and would be demanding a full refund of their entire weeks rental. I explained that my staff and I were doing all we could to get the hot water working and I said I would personally call both the boiler installer and manufacturer on Saturday morning. I also offered other solutions such as using the bathroom in a cottage that was vacant that evening. We are also very well prepared for things occasionally breaking down. We have to be as we are in the heart of the National Park so carry a stock of spares eg kettles, toasters, DVD players, we even have a spare TV. We have two extra large 5 litre kettles which can fill a bath in 5 minutes. There is a socket just outside the bathroom door and we have extension leads so the kettles could have heated the water next to the bath. I was simply trying to find a solution which meant the least disturbance for our guests and some people would have chosen this in preference to using a bathroom in another cottage. I also said I would enquire if either of the local Inns had rooms that weekend. So that evening I checked with both Inns and they had rooms. Despite my best endeavours with the installer and manufacturer on Saturday morning they could not get an engineer to our rural area in the heart of the mountains that day but booked us for first call out Monday morning. I informed the guests. I gave them all the options and they choose to take a look at the two local Inns choosing the more expensive one and I paid for them to spend two nights there. The boiler was fixed first thing Monday morning by the Worcester Bosch engineer and Bob and Amy helped settle the guests back into the cottage for the remainder of their week. My staff and I pride ourselves on our customer care, we are available for our customers 7 days a week at any time of the day. I tried to point out that the timing of the breakdown (Friday evening) was very unfortunate, however, we would do all we could to fix the problem as quickly as humanly possible. We are remote from large towns with plumbers merchants and it is not always possible to get things fixed the same day. When the guests demanded all their money back I tried to point out that I could not give guests all their money back if an appliance broke down. This is not a 100 room hotel, it is a unique individual cottage and we were doing all we possibly could and were offering several solutions regarding hot water and they chose one of these. To give the full weeks money back would have meant the cottage vacant all week and all that our terms and conditions say are that if guests encounter a problem they need to give us the opportunity to fix it and that they should not abandon the cottage. Our carpets are steam cleaned regularly by my housekeeper and our laundry room is mopped several times a week and there are two washing machines and two tumble dryers free for our customers to use. I feel that occasionally guests coming from abroad do not understand that this is a unique 400 year old Grade 2 Listed Cottage in the heart of the mountains. It is not a purpose built modern apartment or one room in a large city hotel. It was very unlucky that a fairly new appliance broke down on a Friday evening. We did our best to get it fixed as quickly as we could and offered several solutions for hot water in the meantime. We all try our absolute best to ensure our customers have a lovely holiday. Excellent customer service is at the heart of our philosophy in caring for our holidaymakers and my staff and I are always striving to improve the service we offer.

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not TripAdvisor LLC.