Miners Cottage Review

Miners Cottage review.

Trying to find a holiday let in the Lake District for 6 people in the 6 week holidays is tough. We settled on a location just outside the centre of the Lake District in Arlecdon, towards the west coast of Whitehaven. We booked through booking.com for 4 nights on the second-to-last week of the holidays. Our journey took us 3 and a half hours, which is a simple drive up the M6. Here is my full Miners Cottage Review

Upon our arrival, we found the cottage and parked opposite in the country lane. This is a safe place to leave the car, but a bit awkward to get the kids across, as the cottage sits on a main road.

It’s not actually your typical cottage either! The let sits in a row of 5 terraced houses, with ours being pretty much in the middle.

Entering the Cottage

We entered with ease, the code was provided to a key safe when I emailed the hosts about our arrival. Unlocking the front door, we entered straight into the dining room, which smelled lovely and pleasant. It had been freshly cleaned, which was nice to see. First impressions were basic décor, but clean and spacious. In the dining room is a large glass table with tables and chairs folded in the corner for outside dining I presume. A metal storage unit sits along the wall with hooks and places for dirty boots and wet clothing. This is a nice touch as most tourists will be exploring the lakes at some point.

The living room consists of 2 sofas, one being a sofa bed, and a television. There is a fireplace, which although wasn’t stocked for a fire, there was evidence of it being used as one. A fridge is located under the stairs away from the kitchen, along with ironing board (but no iron?!) and a clothes horse.

Kitchen and Garden

The kitchen is small but basic. It has a cooker, microwave, kettle, washing machine and a 2 slice toaster. There are plates, bowls, cups, saucepans and basic cooking utensils. A small stash of teabags, coffee and milk sachets were left on the windowsill for us, but I didn’t notice them until later on.

The garden lets the cottage down, as it is very unkempt and not tidy enough for the kids to play in. There were nettles along the back and rubbish behind the house. Also, the bin was full and seemed to have a small wasps nest inside. We were chased a few times! When we are on holiday, the main point is that the kids are off screens and television, and play outdoors. Unfortunately they were unable to do so here.

Upstairs

Upstairs had 2 bedrooms and a lovely bathroom. Again, nice and clean, and the bedding is good quality. Lots of pillows were provided and the duvets were very thick and comfortable. The views from the cottage were lovely.

The bathroom saved the cottage a little. The water was hot and ran well. We treated ourselves to a bath or 2 and the shower was powerful.

As we booked for a family of 6, we expected more beds. There is a double bed, a bunk bed and just a sofa bed downstairs. This would be fine if we were couples, but my mom slept on the sofa bed, we slept in the double and the kids had to share the bunk bed. A bit awkward, but at their age now, it didn’t hurt for a few nights.

At night, the curtains held back the light, so the bedrooms were nice and dark. The beds were very comfortable, even the sofa bed downstairs.

A Few Suggestions

A few suggestions to make the residence a bit more family friendly, would be to sort out the garden and give a list of nearby places to eat or even to locate the nearest shop. Wifi is available, but patchy, so we couldn’t always get signal to find out where we needed to go.

We always make the best out of situations, so the kids were happy with their toys for the time we were there. Although, if we were there any longer, cabin fever would have ensued!

It is a pleasant enough property, perhaps more suited to younger travelers than families.

I just need to spend a bit more money and read more about places before booking! Booking.com doesn’t give much information about the property so I should have done some more investigating.

We have had better experiences, such as our stay at Gardeners Cottage in Scotland and our camping stay at Bird Rock Campsite. What do you think of Miners Cottage Review?

Where have you been lately? Is there anywhere you would recommend?

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