The Hesdin Estate — Hotel in Great Britain

We have just left after a lovely two nights in the Wealthy Merchant. First things first, the place is gorgeous and really does have the wow factor! The stuff! The inclusions on the properties, hot tubs plunge pool, sauna, fire pit and Pizza oven in ours and the larger ones have pools too! Amazing, so much there for each property to enjoy privately. That's the reason for the 5 stars, the price point is spot on for what you get and all the incusions have been well thought out and make for a fantastic break away.

Some points for improvement albeit my personal preference!

We do a lot of lodge/SC/cottage breaks. Like I said this one has the most facilities of any in a similar price point. 5 stars amazing. We are very used to the set up of these type of holidays. I think one thing that Hesdin should consider is looking at the Wealthy Merchant slightly differently to the big party houses. It says it sleeps up to 8, I personally don't think 8 people would be comfortable there. The mezzanine beds are quirky and cute but I'd not put kids up there and I'd question the practicality generally. There's not enough storage, I know if I'd gone with 3 other girls versus my husband, we would have been in chaos as to where to put everything.

No shampoo provided, I totally understand the reasoning for this in the larger properties, but for a luxury holiday let i think missing it out on your smaller property is a misstep. Fully appreciate it does say it isn't provided, I'd just missed that in all the info and spent the day with Hagrid's hair haha!

I booked as I loved the family run friendly vibes it gave on Instagram, but the instructions and 'welcome' seems to just be telling you off, read this, don't contact unless you really really really have to! Again I understand, as I'm sure lots of stupid questions have been asked! We couldnt find the answer to a couple of questions and i actually felt nervous about using the whatsapp to ask! Everything is QR code, both our phones were run down after the drive and would be nice to have a booklet Appreciate that is very old fashioned but think it's helpful.

The bin store is directly next to the garden, we were lucky to have a warm afternoon on arrival and the wind was blowing the smell of the very full bins directly at us and they were honking! I'd hate to be there on a really warm day as that would be unpleasant. Appreciate bins have to be somewhere but it did impinge on our enjoyment playing pool with the smell of bins. Maybe see if they can go somewhere that doesn't directly border a property. We were unlucky i suppose that they were full.

Check out time 10am, when you look at the instructions it says oh by the way we'll be in your garden at 0930 on check out day. This irked me. No. Check out is listed at 10am that is when you should enter the grounds and we should be gone. I like to get packed and enjoy the last hour in the garden. We were out the door by 0930 as it did feel like that's when you wanted us gone.if it's 0930 put it as such.

The Hesdin crew on site were all so so lovely and so helpful. All with a smile and wishing us a lovely stay and made us feel welcome.

The welcome cookies were the best I think I've tasted. The biscuits for the dog were a lovely touch and he enjoyed those! Sitting in the sauna looking out at countryside was pure bliss.

Overall a great place. A great stay, we could see Lady Avas Tower from our property and I'd love to visit that or hayho house soon.

Thanks for having the vision to create...

I had been looking forward to staying at The Hesdin Estate for a long time and was excited to finally book one of their properties (Lady Ava's Tower). Unfortunately, the experience did not live up to expectations, and I was left feeling extremely disappointed.

We only received notice of a planned all-day power cut the following day after we had already started our journey. By that point, we had already spent money on train travel, organised time off work, arranged a cat sitter, and had a food delivery scheduled. While a refund was offered, it was simply too late to turn back. We were told the power cut would last from 8.30am to 4.30pm - it actually lasted until 7.30pm.

That meant we were without electricity for over 10 hours, during which time we had no access to cooking facilities, hot water, or entertainment. The worst part was the continuous fire alarm panel beeping every two seconds for the entire duration of the outage. It made the house unusable and unrelaxing.

On top of that, the hot tub jets were not working throughout our entire stay. This was one of the main reasons we chose this particular property, and I reported the issue promptly. Although the team did try to fix it, the part couldn’t be sourced prior to the end of our stay.

The house was beautiful and immaculately clean. But none of this makes up for the fact that we lost access to basic services and key facilities for a significant part of a short stay, with no compensation or meaningful gesture offered beyond an extra bag of coal, no good-will gesture offered upon reveiving my complaint and very little accountability taken. A luxury stay at this price point should come with better communication, responsibility, and guest care when things go wrong - even when they are due to external factors.

In response to my complaint, The Hesdin Estate explained that as the booking was confirmed Saturday evening it wasn’t picked up until Monday morning. However I feel that the website should have had notice of the power cut at the time of booking, and the website chatbox should not say staff working days include Sunday if not the case. Hesdin Estate stressed that the outage was outside of their control and that safety regulations prevented them from silencing the fire alarm beeping.

If this stay had been accurately advertised as including a 10-hour power cut with a constant loud beeping noise and a non-functioning hot tub, I simply wouldn’t have booked. I’m very disappointed and would caution others to be aware that, based on my experience, should anything go wrong during your stay due to external factors the response may not reflect the level of service you’d expect from a luxury property.

*My reply to Hesdin's response: It is simply not true that an offer was made to help reimburse travel costs at time of offering a refund while we were on our way to the estate. Also hot water flasks were not offered - just coal.

There ended up only being 3 of us staying, and anyway your point about cost per person per night at full capacity is irrelevant.

I am very surprised you were only given 1.5 working days notice of a day of planned power outtage, when their website says they normally give 7 days notice.

In response to our complaint a discount on next stay was offered, but it was not specified this would be £250. Either way, a discount on next stay should not be what is offered - a refund of at least £250 is what should have been...

We've had a lovely time overall at Hesdin, staying in The Wealthy Merchant, however there were far too many annoyances to give this a higher rating. I'll describe the pros and cons.

Pros: The communication and advice beforehand was excellent.

It's beautiful - the style is lovely, unique and feels high quality whilst also being cosy.

The beds are very comfy.

The living area is spacious and comfy.

The kitchen is pretty well equipped - has almost everything you need. But be warned - the kitchen knives are very sharp! (But the scissors are almost impossible to use, they're way too stiff)

The outdoor area is lovely too - it's so fun having a hot tub, sauna, table tennis table, pool table and bbq ! The hot tub is a really decent size and is beautifully warm (no need for the bahamas package!). We didn't actually use the sauna.

The estate animals are adorable and the kids loved feeding them.

The welcome cookie jar was absolutely delicious! And a really nice touch, thank you.

Cons: On day of check in, we realised the lock on our front door wasn't working and there was no way to resolve it. Unfortunately we only realised this after 6pm, so there was nobody around to help. Please note - this is NOT a hotel, or B&B even. Staff are around only during very limited hours. There was a key for the back door, which we could've used instead, but this info was not provided in the check in info we were sent and we were not told this till the following morning, when someone finally responded.

The sink kept getting blocked, despite us being very careful not to put any food down the sink. There was no plunger, simply sink unblocker, which is only a temporary fix as the sink keeps blocking. Hesdin, you really do need to sort this out.

If you intend to use the Mezzanine beds in the Wealthy Merchant, they are VERY high up a steep ladder. They look cool and it seems like a lovely, quirky feature, but in reality they are very impractical, even dangerous. I dread to imagine trying to go to the loo in the night if you're sleeping up there.

Additionally, if 4 people were sleeping in one bedroom, I'm really not sure where they would all put their stuff. There is very little storage in the bedrooms - no wardrobes at all, just a few hangers and a small hanging rail, coat hook type thing.

One other minor annoyance was the lack of plugs in the bedrooms. There's just a plug either side of the bed. It would be handy to have at least one other, positioned elsewhere in the bedroom.

Overall, it's a lovely place and the annoyances are things that I think could easily be fixed. This place has a lot of potential and it's in a lovely part of...