Dog Friendly Monmouthshire Holiday Cottages

Reviews

What our customers say about their holidays

• Ashley - Verified booking

  We were looking for a cottage with good walks around for over the New Year.

  Needed to be relatively quietly located as we have one dog (of our 2) that hates the fireworks that usually accompany the New Year coming in. This fitted the bill and was reduced in price too for the 3 nights we wanted. Friendly owner who lives in main house next door. We had use of her adjoining fields too which were great for a quick exercise of the dogs straight from the cottage. The cottage was as advertised and well kitted out. PROS - Good to have hard flooring across the ground floor (plus mats & rugs) that allowed easy movement of the dogs without having to worry about marks etc. The entrance "hall" was great with a mat and then stone floor that helped allow our dogs to be dried down after the many wet walks we had. There was a hose outside the main house too for getting mud off easily. Beds were comfortable but beware low headroom, especially in the upstairs bedroom and downstairs toilet. Having the heating on allowing a warm cottage to come back to was really appreciated. Great library of walks and places to go. CONS - The shower head attachment in the first floor bathroom was broken. When flushing the ground floor toilet, there is a sound akin to a warning klaxon - beware night use! OTHER THINGS TO NOTE - Broadband/WiFi in the cottage was sporadic, probably due to location and BT's poor local infrastructure. No mobile signal inside cottage (some outside though depending on your provider) Welsh Newton is a hamlet with no local shops. Best to go to Monmouth (15 mins drive away for that). If you walk locally (and have dogs), none of the stiles have dog gates - get ready to manhandle your hounds over the stiles. Overall, a good time was had by all (including our labrador & labradoodle).

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• Pam - Verified booking

  I am sorry to say that we found that this is a very tired cottage in dire need of a good deep clean and decorator.

  There was dirt on skirting boards, doors, cupboards, floors, both bathrooms, dirty toilet seat, filthy dirty shower tracks upstairs, mouldy grouting, dirt and crumbs in fridge door seal and inside the fridge, the bin was caked in old dried off food/rubbish material, the sink was stained and the washing up bowl worn out, lots of cobwebs and so many spiders making home on the ceilings, flaking paint on the garden furniture. We arrived when the weather was hot and found it was impossible to consider sleeping upstairs in the open plan roof bedroom due to the rising heat which was 38c plus inside. Unfortunately this bedroom had inadequate ventilation and had a metal fan with broken bearings. We had to sleep downstairs in the single beds. In fairness to the owner she did come in and wipe the dirt from the seals of the fridge, wipe the toilet lid and sink floor and also provided a very nice replacement fan and washing up bowl. The other thing to be aware of the garden is not enclosed. We did not find this cottage was as described in the description as being “high quality accommodation”. We in fact had to cut our holiday short by two days, due to the conditions, and returned home. It’s sad to write this review as the cottage is in beautiful grounds, in a lovely part of Wales.

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• Debbie - Verified booking

  We’ve just got home from such a lovely and relaxing weekend!

  My mum booked a long weekend here as a birthday treat for my partner and I along with the two pooches and I have to say we enjoyed every minute. The country cottage offered everything we needed and was located in a beautiful spot with lots of lovely walks on the doorstep. It’s a very remote location making it so peaceful but the town is just a short drive with several accessible supermarkets if we needed to nip out for anything. We were out mostly enjoying the scenery with the dogs and found somewhere new each day, a couple of great recommendations from the owner. It’s a cold time of year but the cottage was lovely and toasty every time we got back in. The owner was very approachable and friendly should we have needed anything. I have to say looking back at some previous reviews, I couldn’t disagree more with some of the comments and they seem very harsh, the cottage was lovely with some original traditional features and the WiFi was just your typical connection for a remote country location so we expected this to be a little slow (we’re country folk so this wasn’t a necessity to us!). We loved it, the dogs loved it and we will be returning in the future to explore some more for sure!

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• Paul - Verified booking

  We were quite disappointed with this cottage although the surroundings were lovely being in the heart of fields the cottage itself was not up to Sykes usual standard.

  We queried whether it had actually been cleaned prior to our visit as there was cobwebs and spiders everywhere. Yes you expect the odd spider or cobweb when you’re in the country but not clinging to the walls and walking through one when you enter the downstairs wet room. There was no light in the oven so you had to keep opening the door to check the food which immediately set off both smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Of the 4 spotlights in the kitchen area only 2 were working. I’m sure Alissa is a lovely lady and seemed very pleasant when we occasionally saw her but in general we were very upset as this could be a delightful cottage with a little more care and attention. In conclusion we are amazed that Sykes don’t have any way of checking that their holiday lets are not up to recognised standard.

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• Jeni - Verified booking

  Pros - very peaceful and a great location for discovering the area.

  The bedding was lovely. Cons - the cottage was tatty, particularly upstairs. Storage facilities were dreadful upstairs and what there was was obviously not checked as the ‘wardrobe’ (I use the term lightly) was filthy and still had a skirt in it from a previous visitor. The drawers had dead flies in them. Everywhere had cobwebs and the window sill in the upstairs bedroom was mouldy and had thick dust and dead flies on it. Whilst we understand that a cottage in the country is bound to have insects, this was old dirt. After spilling a few crumbs on the floor under the table we swept up our mess only to end up with so much dirt in the dustpan it was obvious it hadn’t been swept for a while. I could go on but fair to say we would never stay here again.

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