Kingham Cottages Ltd — Hotel in West Oxfordshire

The house itself is small but nice and very functional, with the a very well equipped kitchen . The lady liz who checked us in was kind and always and we wish she had been the one communicating on booking site! Very polite and very professional member of staff, and the gardener was also helpful and had some good tips for the area.

However, there are significant drawbacks that future guests should be aware of. First, the house allways smells of rotten eggs due to drains issue when we spoke to host Christopher he told us to open a window or use some air freshener maybe. Liz did offer to move us to a different house on day 8 but we didn’t see the point for 2 more nights.

The house is not connected to the gardens. To access them, you have to walk down a public road. The gardens are the owner's private grounds, and while they're pleasant for walking or playing croquet , activities like football, cricket, golf, or any high-intensity sports are not allowed. The lack of direct access to these amenities from the rental property was disappointing and inconvenient.

The pool situation is particularly annoying. The pool is shared with the owner’s house and 7 other cottages, again, requires a walk down the road to reach. Guests are restricted to just 1 hour and 15 minutes of pool time per day—a serious limitation, especially for families with children. Additionally, children are prohibited from bringing any toys into the pool, citing concerns about blocking the filter. In our experience, this restriction is highly unusual and impractical, detracting significantly from our holiday experience. Also the steam room spa is broken and not working until day 8 of our trip!

The tennis court is in poor condition, with weeds growing through the surface and sections of tarmac in disrepair. This poses a safety risk, especially when playing.

Our booking experience was marred by a lack of transparency. Shortly after booking, we discovered through another site that this property is part of a shared complex, something not clearly communicated in the listing. Given that one of our children has severe anxiety around strangers, we tried to cancel the booking within minutes of making it. The host not only refused our request but also responded dismissively, suggesting we take our child to a remote mountain instead. This response was not only unprofessional but deeply insensitive.

Throughout our and before stay, the host's Christopher communication was virtually non-existent and when we did get anything back it was very dismissive and never helpful. Despite sending multiple messages requesting basic information, we received no response until after we had already arrived at the cottage from the lovely lady liz. The lack of communication added unnecessary stress and frustration to our trip. And the host should leave the msgs to liz as she is lovely and kind un like him!

Overall, we felt very seriously misled by the listing. Critical information about the property's layout, shared facilities, and limitations was not disclosed upfront, which would have significantly impacted our decision to book. For the price, this property offers poor value, and we strongly believe we could have found something elce in the area for half the price we would advise others to consider alternative accommodations...

We stayed at Ryeworth cottage, Kingham cottages September 2020 Monday to Friday. We’re a family of 4, our children are 4 months and 2.5 years, and grandparents came to stay as well.

I recommend this venue for a perfect holiday. Would work well having a couple of cottages and staying with family/friends when covid rules allow. The ryeworth property is perfect for congregating with other cottages or hosting larger gatherings.

We had a fantastic week. The cottage has everything you need and is finished to an excellent standard. There are three bedrooms in ryeworth. We used a bed guard for our two year old in a single bed and used the travel cot provided for our infant. We brought our own additional mattress for the cot as with all travel cots the mattress is a bit thin.

There’s under floor heating throughout the house, it was warm and cosy. Each bedroom had good bedding, towels and bathrooms had bath and shower gel.

The kitchen has everything you need - pots, pans, And lots of cutlery and crockery. We found plastic crockery in the picnic hamper for our daughter. There’s a high chair too.

There’s a DVD player in the Living room, but no dvds so take your own. There’s instructions for everything but not the tv unfortunately, but easy enough to work out. There’s a larger screen downstairs in the play room but no DVD player down there.

The pool was absolutely wonderful. It’s heated, and we had our own dedicated swim sessions. There’s a shower and changing room in there or you can hot foot it back to home.

The gardens are splendid, and you can walk around them for ages. There’s a little swing the kids can use.

We used the cottage as a base for the week and visited other villages in the Cotswolds. We visited Birdland in Bourton on the water, which I recommend. And Adams Cotswolds Farm park and chipping norton. We ate at the Kingham plough which was delicious.

The owners were super helpful and friendly and the cottage was very clean. I would recommend visiting Kingham lodge.

I would recommend making a supermarket order or visiting a supermarket when you arrive. The village shop has basic essentials, and Daylesford has good food but very expensive, but lovely places to visit and has good gifts and...

In January 2020, we booked a holiday cottage for a 4 night stay in the Cotswold and paid the rental fee in full, along with the security deposit. In light of the Covid-19 outbreak and the fact we would be travelling with elderly family with pre-existing health conditions, we contacted the cottage owner on 22 March to confirm options for re-booking our stay without penalty. The cottage owner stated that the contract terms would still apply and we would lose 50% of the rental fee (£688.50). He stated that the only flexibility that he was offering existing customers was a 25% discount if they opted to re-book. Given that the country went into lockdown, there was no way that we could stay at the cottage in April 2020. The owner made it very clear that despite these unprecedented circumstances, the contract terms would still hold and we should claim through our travel insurance provider (if we had taken out a policy). From the point of contacting the owner on 22 March, it took until 20 April for the security deposit and 50% rental fee to be returned. It was also only processed when I chased the owner for repayment. Given COVID-19, I do not believe the contract terms we were held to were reasonable/ethical. The cottage, location, grounds and facilities are so appealing for families wanting to visit the Cotswold. We were really looking forward to our vacation and it is highly upsetting that we were unable to re-book for a future date (without penalty) and had to forfeit the 50% rental fee. Given the unacceptable treatment we received and the significant sums lost, we would not recommend booking this property unless you have travel insurance that would cover such circumstances. Any reputable and reasonable company would have allowed customers to move bookings to a future date...