Byre Cottages and Cafe Museum

Look no further. If you're looking to stay somewhere in the English countryside it should be here, the phrase rural idyll was probably coined just to describe it. Gail and Graham are amazing hosts, and their farm is a thing of beauty. Personal highlights were watching my 2 year old cousins contendedly collecting eggs from the hens, a dawn swim, and a chaotic BBQ / picnic on the scenic courtyard lawn.

Booked to stay for 5 nights in one of the cottages through hotel.com, on the afternoon of arrival it turned out they had double booked for that evening. We were then made to feel like it was our fault by the host as we had booked last minute, even though we had many email confirmations from hotel.com and the money taken from our account for the booking. So that evening we had to go off and find emergency accommodation elsewhere with our 1 year old child. We did end up staying in the cottage for the following 5 nights which was very nice. After leaving we asked if they would offer any kind of refund to cover the additional costs we incurred on the first night. The host quite rudely refused, then eventually after a long email exchange offered only half the cost for one night stay. This didn’t nearly cover the extra expense we incurred.

Unfortunately I can't give any stars. Be careful when booking a wedding. We put a deposit down for an original date which then they realised had double booked us so gave us other dates which were ok but not perfect so agreed to one and gave a £500 deposit. A week later we decided actually the date wasn't perfect and we had changed our minds. This was over a year before our wedding and we had it only booked with them for about 3 weeks. Gail wouldn't give us even a proportion of our deposit back. I still feel annoyed about it even though we had a fantastic and much better value for our money somewhere else.