Woodend
Self Catering Holiday Cottages

Your accommodation will be ready for you after 4.00 pm on the first day of your stay, (usually Saturday), and we ask you to depart by 10.00 am on the last day of your stay.

Quite often your cottage will be available earlier, if cleaned first, and generally I will contact you by text or email to let you know that you can arrive earlier if you want to.

Your cottage will be unlocked and the key inside.

The gap between departure and arrival times enables us to thoroughly clean the cottages between lets. However, we do expect our guests to leave the cottages in a clean and orderly condition (ie. plates/cutlery put away, fridge emptied and cleaned, worktops wiped down, floors swept/hoovered, fire emptied, rubbish/recycling put out, etc)

A condition of your booking is that you agree to do this.

Towels and bed linen are provided as is the storage heating and a supply of coal for the fires.

We providethe full Sky HD digital television package, except the box office movies which are normally "pay as you view" and are not available in the cottages.

Househod basics starters are usually provided; ie. firelighters, matches, washing up liquid, sponge, bin liners, kitchen roll, salt, pepper, foil, clingfilm, tissues, bath foam and loo roll.

If you are short of anything then please come and ask.

We do not make a charge for pets as know that you appreciate being able to take our dog on holiday with you. Also we are quite generous in the numbers of dogs that we allow. However, we have had a number of dog experiences and would like to bring your attention to the following:

• Dogs are not allowed on beds or any items of furniture. If you don't think that you can control this then please bring something to cover the sofa and/or bed.
• You as the owner take responsibility for the additional cleaning and hoovering of the living areas that may result at the end of your stay. ie. fouling, chewing and especially moulting
• Please don't leave your dog in the cottage when you go out unless a prior arrangement has been made with us. If you wish to go out for a meal without your pet, and you think that it may be happy staying with us and our dog for a couple of hours, then we are always happy to dog sit for you. Have a chat with us during your stay.

A condition of your booking is that you agree to do this.

Woodend is set in the middle of a sheep farm and the farmer would like us to bring to your attention that dogs should be kept under control at all times.

Your co-operation will ensure that our no-charging policy can continue!

The tenants agree that neither the owners nor any person in their employ will be liable to any member of their party for any loss, damage, sickness or injury, including baggage, car and contents, howsoever caused, which may be sustained by the tenants or any member of their party, or any person whom the tenants may have invited into the accommodation and grounds of the property during the holiday period.

Please take good care of the property and contents.

These must be notified to the owner, during your stay or on your departure, who shall be entitled to charge for replacement.

As a courtesy to other visitors all areas of the cottages are non-smoking!
Smokers are welcome to smoke outside but please disgard your butts thoughtfully!

The owner shall be allowed access to the property at any reasonable time for any essential maintenance. Wherever possible this would be by prior arrangement.

Holiday cancellation insurance is recommended and is available from many insurance companies.

It would be advisable to check that it also covers cancellation due to bad weather although it's very very rare that we can't get in or out of Woodend.

If you choose not to take out holiday protection insurance, we cannot accept responsibility for any loss.

Should you need to cancel your holiday, please inform us as soon as possible.

Provided we receive notification before the balance of rental is due, then only your deposit will be forfeited.

However after this date you will be liable to pay the total cost of your booking.

We will do our best to re-let and if successful we will refund your balance.

If you have an issues with any aspects of your stay, they can usually be rectified immediately and certainly within a short period of time.

However, it is imperative that you report the problem during your stay.

We will not consider any requests for reductions/refunds unless either:

a) you have made an attempt to contact the appropriate person whilst you are at Woodend and report the problem. (Details are given in the welcome folder),

b) we fail to rectify a problem within a "reasonable" amount of time during your stay.

If the problem is outside of the owners control, a "reasonable" amount of time is taken to be 24 hours.

They are of course very welcome.

For babies and toddlers we have one highchair available on a "first come first served" basis and we have a "pop up" travel cot and "put you up" bed.

The Bothy has an open staircase so is unsuitable for toddlers, the Schoolhouse is all on one floor and the Buttery has a half flight of stone steps.

All cottages have un-protected log burning stoves.

The cottages are offered only on the understanding that the number of people that you have booked for will be accommodated and that no more than 6 people (plus a baby) will use the cottage and no more than 2 people (plus a baby) will use the bothy, schoolhouse or buttery.

On some occasions we can provide an additional "put you up" bed and additional laundry in the Cottage and Buttery so please ask.

At considerable expense, we now have Starlink Satellite Internet. The advantage is that it is very fast and the latency (delay), is the equivalent of fibre broadband.
At source it can be anything between 40Mbps and 200Mbps but by the lime it is relayed to the cottages by cable, it should still be in excess of 50Mbps, and sometimes considerably more.

It can to be used for email and research purposes and is also suitable for Zoom meetings, watching films and downloads!
(Please note that currently our TV's (apart from the Buttery), although adequate for the Sky satellite TV that is in the cottages, aren't smart TV's so you would need something like your own Amazon Firestick in order to use streaming services such as Netflix!

You are welcome to use this free of charge for wireless internet conncection.

For the majority of the time (and in our experience), it will be perfectly OK but we cannot give you a 100% guarantee that it will always function. If it isn't available then you are welcome to come over to The Barn, where you can pick up the slow BT connection to access emails, etc.

Previously we used the 5 mile BT phone line but on a good day that gave approximately 0.6 Mbp wireless broadband internet access.
(That's the fastest we could get because of our remote position).