We stayed at The Brook with our children for five nights in July 2018. Initial impressions were great ....... stunning house with some beautiful furnishings. Problems came to light pretty quickly, though. The wooden strip joining the landing floor to the master bedroom floor wasn't stuck down and came off, causing me to trip. Not the best start. The owner had the strip stuck down when I made her aware. The master bedroom furnishings were lovely, but let down by what looked like ear wax stuck to the headboard. The bedding was beautifully soft and clean, with the exception of the throw on the bed, which was stained in a few places with what looked like blood. The en suite was beautifully fitted, but the toilet needed a good clean.

There was a terrible smell of sewers from the en suite, which would come and go. The only other problem with the bedrooms was that the bottom shelf of the wardrobe in the room with bunk beds was thick with dust, which left marks on our clothes. The sitting room had a beautiful wooden floor, but it was spoilt by the fact that it needed a really good clean. I wiped a piece of damp kitchen roll on the floor and the dirt on it was evident. Again, the furnishings in the sitting room were beautiful, with the exception of two small arm chairs which were very badly worn. In all honestly, I wouldn't have them in my own home, let alone a 5* holiday let.

The dining part of the kitchen features an absolutely stunning restored Aga cooker and is floored in beautiful flagstones. The dining table is covered by an oilcloth which had dried-in food stuck to it. Plenty of place mats were provided, but they needed cleaning. One in particular had dried-on food stuck to it and another had been badly defaced. When I told the owner about these, they were removed. On the table was a vase of white Carnations. They would have been lovely had a lot of them not been dead and withered. The owner replaced these with fresh flowers during our stay. The kitchen has lovely painted units and granite work surfaces. The fridge/freezer is large, though the shelves needed a wipe out before we placed our food inside. When heating sausage rolls, we removed an oven tray from the cupboard to place them on. It was ABSOLUTELY FILTHY and thick with charred food.

Even the owner agreed that it was disgusting. Another item, a large glass bowl, was covered in dirty marks. The kitchen, in general, wasn't too bad, but more attention could be paid to ensuring crockery is clean and replacing chipped crockery. The housekeeper had forgotten to replenish the dishwasher tablets, but this was easily solved by us purchasing some. The family bathroom features a beautiful roll top bath, corner shower unit, wash hand basin and toilet. The toilet cistern had become loose from the wall and needed securing. Replacement toilet rolls weren't provided, so we had to buy some. We hadn't been made aware that the water heater in the property didn't work and only found out when the shower in the en suite was cold for our morning showers. When we enquired, the owner told us that the water heater had never worked and that we should heat the water by the hot water button on the central heating controls. One evening, it became a little chilly, so we put the central heating on.

After being on for two hours, there was very little heat in the downstairs radiators. They were barely tepid. Upstairs was laid with lovely wooden floors (which appeared to be cleaner than the sitting room floor), but there were several large gaps between the boards which really spoilt the look.

The property is situated on a very busy road, so a lot of road noise is to be expected. All in all, we were very disappointed with our stay at The Brook. The cleanliness was very poor and attention to detail very lacking. More upkeep was definitely required. The owner did leave us a bottle of wine, but it was too little, too late. It was most definitely not the 5* experience promised in the advertising! We found the property to be 3* at best, with cleanliness scoring 1*.

Included are photographs showing some of the issues we encountered. Most definitely not worth the considerable amount of money we paid for our stay.