Straw Plaiters Cottage

So beautiful throughout, great amenities close by and the host was always available if we needed anything!

Lovely characterful cottage. All modern amenities. Easy to park on the street.

No negatives

Beautiful cottage. Furnishings and styling were quality and stylish. The beds and linen were really comfortable. Comms with owner Sophie were great. The property was spotlessly clean.

Front bedroom was very noisy from 5am each morning being on the main road. Lorries clattering past over pot holes made it impossible to sleep 🥺

I don't really write reviews ever, so this is a one off. Access was fine, owner won't give you instructions until check in time btw, lock box was very stiff. Visually it's a very picture perfect cottage on the inside. Wooden beams, nice furnishings, log burner fire, nice bathtub. There's a great coffee machine with Grind pods. It's a short 5-10 minute walk to the train station and/or the start of various walks like the one up Coombe Hill (even though you have to take a longer route to get there due to the HS2 works at the moment). Great it's dog friendly. The bed was comfy.

We came here for my wife's 30th birthday surprise with our puppy. It was fine, but we were both very glad to get away at the end, it felt like a sigh of relief, so I think maybe we were let down a bit by the experience. - I don't think anyone had been there for quite a while. A lot of the glasses on the shelves were dusty as were the surfaces, so we had to clean them ourselves. However, when we went to clean them there were only old sponges available with other peoples manky food on it and no fresh cleaning products. The property also only came with 1 toilet roll, so we had to go out to buy some more. - Because the front door opens straight into the living room, there's nowhere to put your shoes or belongings and you traipse a lot of mud into the cottage fairly easily. This made the living room not feel that cosy, and the noise from the road/ constantly seeing the cars did sometimes make you feel like you were sitting on the side of the road.. - The TV in the lounge is really really low quality and not all of the apps (Apple TV etc) work properly. Combined with the car noise and the tin like noise from the audio, we couldn't make out what was being said on the shows we did try to watch. - The kitchen has pots and pans to cook with, but no condiments. No oil, a tiny bit of old salt and pepper, that's it. So make sure to bring your own. - Don't try to cook any elaborate meals here which require a hob. The induction hobs would take over 15 minutes to boil a small pan of water. They are incredibly weak despite being on full temperature. It ruined a couple of the meals we tried to make. - The bathtub is a bit of a nightmare if you're not used to using a hand shower. It's very easy to accidentally flood the bathroom using it, so be careful. Not the most relaxing having to kneel. - Road noise in bedroom was very bad too, and we are good sleepers.