Latest news with #cottages
Wall Street Journal
13-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Airbnb Lets You Add a Private Chef to Your Rental. Your Host Might Not Like It.
Airbnb ABNB -1.20%decrease; red down pointing triangle not only wants to rent you a vacation home this summer—it wants to help you add a private chef or massage session. The hosts who own the condos, cottages and houses aren't so sure.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Homes for sale with outbuildings and studios in England and Wales
Ceredigion Why own one home when you can have a whole hamlet – or most of one anyway? Three cottages, a boathouse and two Dutch barns make up most of this hamlet. Beautifully restored by the owners with quarry-tiled floors and timber-panelled walls, the main property, Felin Brithdir, is painted a rustic coral. Within 1.2 hectares (three acres) of land, there is a a wildflower meadow, a lake and woodland. Close to the coast, it lends itself to a holiday let business; the hamlet is on the route between Aberystwyth and Eryri (Snowdonia). £975,000 . Inigo, 020 3687 3071 Photograph: Inigo Colepike Hall is a Grade II-listed manor house and estate that, in its earliest iteration, was supposedly part of a deserted village. It became a manor house in medieval times and was rebuilt again in 1859. The stone building is now split into three properties. Cookson House, the four-bedroom east wing is for sale, but residents will soon forget they are attached. This side of the hall has its own private gardens, including woodland, a fenced paddock and a kitchen garden. A large outbuilding houses a gym and a store room. £950,000. Finest Properties, 0330 111 2266 Photograph: Finest In this rural hamlet, four miles from the town of Heathfield, surrounded by the High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty, is a detached family-sized home. There is a timber garage with a studio above that has its own kitchenette and is accessed by an external staircase. The front door opens into a large entrance hall with a sitting room on one side and the study on the other. Bifold doors open out from the kitchen on to a terrace that runs the width of the house and looks out across the lawn at the back. £995,000. Knight Frank, 01892 354 547 Photograph: Knight Frank This double-fronted Grade II-listed village house, which dates to 1848, has three bedrooms, plus an annexe in the back garden that could serve as a study or home office. There is a basement, too. The kitchen cabinets are painted ink blue, while the tiled flooring runs into the light snug, which has whitewashed exposed ceiling beams. There is gated parking and a walled south-facing courtyard garden. This popular village has the three Ps – a pub, a post office and a primary school. It is about three miles from the market town of Stamford. £600,000. Savills, 01780 484 696 Photograph: Savills Behind double-glazed front doors is a three-storey home in a conservation area between Blackheath and Charlton. The kitchen and smaller sitting room are on the lower ground level. The heart of the home is the reception room, which dominates the ground floor with wooden floors, panelled walls and a feature fireplace. Stairs from here lead up to the first floor. In the landscaped garden there is an outhouse with internet access and power. Westcombe Park railway station is in close proximity. £850,000. Dexters, 020 8815 2200 Photograph: Dexters
The Sun
07-06-2025
- The Sun
I stayed a the dog-friendly cottage in the UK with welcome hampers and nearby beaches
PEOPLE don't seem to just like East Ruston Cottages – or ERC as its veteran guests refer to it for short. They love it. Really love it. The one thing uniting them all? Dogs. Every one of them is a pet owner. 2 2 And like dogs with a bone, they can't seem to let go of this agency for dog-friendly cottages in coastal and rural Norfolk. They don't just come once. Or twice. Some have booked upward of 30 times over the last decade. So, what makes these cottages so special? Well, after I check in for a few days at the four-person Farthing Cottage, in the village of Trunch, between the coast and Norfolk Broads, it's easy to see. The semi-detached, flint-stone cottage, set back from a quiet residential road, is a delight. Beer festival There are paw-print stickers padding across the patio doors inviting my Manchester Terrier, Arty, out into the fully enclosed garden. There's also a welcome hamper with treats for humans as well as a mini-hamper for the dog, with Norfolk -made dog treats, a collapsible bowl, a clip-on light for visibility in the dark and a poo-bag holder. The shelf in the hallway has a tin of dog treats and a jar full of dog tags with the cottage address on one side and a 'I'm on holiday' notice on the other. And on the hooks by the front door, there's even a bag with 'I need space' lead labels to borrow from Yellow Dog UK, made for anxious or reactive dogs that don't want to be approached by others when roaming the local footpaths. The owners, it seems, really have thought of everything, and to my delight they've not left a list of rules my dog must follow. We spend our days roaming on the local dog-friendly beaches at Mundesley and Trimingham, and evenings curled up on the sofas with the fire blazing. Inside luxury dog-friendly glamping pod with wild Scottish spa and its own fairy pools The local social club (also dog-friendly) has a beer festival on, so I drink local ales and listen to live music before retiring to the cottage, where Arty is allowed to snooze on the bed with me, just as he does at home. If you are stuck for things to do in the local area, this can be quickly remedied with a visit to the ERC Facebook page. Regular visitors lurk on the company's Facebook group, which has a bewildering 6,000 members, ready to pounce with recommendations of nearby pubs, beaches or fish and chip shops. After years of staying at dog-friendly accommodation and writing dog-friendly guidebooks, few places can match up to the efforts made by East Ruston Cottages. I'm no longer surprised by the fact that the company's most popular properties, such as The Lookout which has a sea view, are booked right through until 2026 in some cases. And while I'm not about to join the congregation of impassioned Facebook followers, I will no doubt be returning for more.
BBC News
25-05-2025
- Business
- BBC News
South West holiday lets fear cost of energy efficiency plans
Short-term holiday lets across the South West of England could be forced out of business by new rules to make them more energy efficient, tourism bosses have government has proposed properties must have at least a grade C rating as part of changes to Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). Tourism leaders said they feared the cost of upgrading old stone cottages in the region to meet new standards would be prohibitive with owners deciding to sell up government said it had consulted with the short-term letting industry about its proposals and would look at the results. 'Expensive process' Neil Dennett runs four holiday cottages near Looe and estimated the cost of changes to make them more energy efficient could come to about £60,000."We'd have to put in floor insulation, wall insulation and ceiling insulation," he said."This would necessitate ripping the floor out of the kitchen, relaying it, retiling, redecorating and it would be exactly the same scenario with the walls and ceiling."In these old buildings the walls are about a metre thick and they are also not straight so it's going to be an expensive process."If we have to do that, it effectively means we will have to shut the business down because it becomes unviable."It will be a real shame to see that level of investment and effort we've put in disappear." Under the changes, most owners would be expected to spend up to £15,000 to try to make their accommodation more energy efficient including using better insultation and air-source heat Handyside, chair of the South West Tourism Alliance, predicted that could spell disaster."You're asking people to spend three years of profit in advance in order to continue to trade," he said."It's too expensive, it's going to happen too quickly, and so we think that a lot of people will finally close the door."Our data is showing 30%."The visitor economy is a fragile eco system."If you remove a lot of the bed stock you remove the ability for people to stay in that area and, if they can't stay, they don't go to visitor attractions, pubs or restaurants." The government said its proposals would help make houses cheaper to heat and reduce fuel also insisted it would look at affordability exemptions for some owners. A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: "We have consulted widely on our plans for private rented homes to achieve Energy Performance Certificate C or equivalent by 2030, including those representing the short-term letting industry."The consultation has now closed and we will consider the evidence received."We will set out our position as part of the consultation response in due course."
