Burton Manor Farm Cottages — Local services in Derbyshire Dales

A beautiful location close to the town of Bakewell, with great views over the Wye Valley and good access to most of the Peak District. Eg Castleton is around 30mins drive away. ||||Burton Manor Farm is a working dairy farm, with around 500 or so cows. The milking sheds are behind the cottages, so you find yourself in the thick of the noise and often smells of a working farm. There are no 'scheduled' farm tours, but if you ask it's possible to see them milking the cows if you are interested. We had young children with us who were. However, it's not a place you can let children wander at will. ||||Burton Manor Farm self-catering holiday cottages is rather a misnomer and marketing ploy as some at least are suites of rooms, some on the first floor others on the ground floor.||||We stayed at Brendan Cottage ("Brendan Suite" on the door), which was a first floor suite of 5 rooms (2 bedrooms (1 double and 1 with two singles), living/dining room, kitchen(ette) and bathroom). To give credit the owners have done their best to equip the rooms well. TV with built in DVD player, free WiFi, beds were decent and firm. Dining table with 4 chairs, sofa and 2 armchairs. Carpeted, double glazed windows with security locks. Well equipped kitchen... undercounter fridge (small freezer (additional freezer space in utility room), oven, stove top, microwave and good assortment of utensils. There's also a shared utility/games room with the additional freezer space if wanted, washing machine and tumble dryer. Utility room also has a selection of bats and balls as well as table tennis table taking up most of the space. Out the back of the utility room there's a shared lawn area with airer and picnic table.||||The owner herself does not live on the farm (but her son does) and on arrival and departure we were not met by anybody. In fact we're not sure we even saw her. There was somebody we saw who could have been the owner, but they never made the effort to say hi and we were not certain enough they were not another guest.||||The rooms in Brendan are on the small side. In the room with the double bed there's just about room to squeeze between the bed and walls and I'm not exactly overweight. You might find it easier to shift the bed against the wall to maximise floor space, so long as one of you doesn't mind climbing over the bed/partner to get into or out of bed :-) The dining area is squeezed to the back of the dining room into a small dark corner with no natural light. It was one of the things that tainted our experience of staying as we needed to use it a lot with young family. Unfortunately the kitchen is also positioned at the far end of a corridor away from the other rooms.||Wifi was slow and flaky. Being on the first floor we were also concerned about disturbing the suite of rooms below us. Particularly with our two active little uns :-/||||We found Brendan Cottage suited our needs, somewhere to stay, access to a washing machine, wifi, warm and able to dry out when necessary. However, the cost, we felt too high and really reflected its location as being in the Peak District and close...

A beautiful location close to the town of Bakewell, with great views over the Wye Valley and good access to most of the Peak District. Eg Castleton is around 30mins drive away. ||||Burton Manor Farm is a working dairy farm, with around 500 or so cows. The milking sheds are behind the cottages, so you find yourself in the thick of the noise and often smells of a working farm. There are no 'scheduled' farm tours, but if you ask it's possible to see them milking the cows if you are interested. We had young children with us who were. However, it's not a place you can let children wander at will. ||||Burton Manor Farm self-catering holiday cottages is rather a misnomer and marketing ploy as some at least are suites of rooms, some on the first floor others on the ground floor.||||We stayed at Brendan Cottage ("Brendan Suite" on the door), which was a first floor suite of 5 rooms (2 bedrooms (1 double and 1 with two singles), living/dining room, kitchen(ette) and bathroom). To give credit the owners have done their best to equip the rooms well. TV with built in DVD player, free WiFi, beds were decent and firm. Dining table with 4 chairs, sofa and 2 armchairs. Carpeted, double glazed windows with security locks. Well equipped kitchen... undercounter fridge (small freezer (additional freezer space in utility room), oven, stove top, microwave and good assortment of utensils. There's also a shared utility/games room with the additional freezer space if wanted, washing machine and tumble dryer. Utility room also has a selection of bats and balls as well as table tennis table taking up most of the space. Out the back of the utility room there's a shared lawn area with airer and picnic table.||||The owner herself does not live on the farm (but her son does) and on arrival and departure we were not met by anybody. In fact we're not sure we even saw her. There was somebody we saw who could have been the owner, but they never made the effort to say hi and we were not certain enough they were not another guest.||||The rooms in Brendan are on the small side. In the room with the double bed there's just about room to squeeze between the bed and walls and I'm not exactly overweight. You might find it easier to shift the bed against the wall to maximise floor space, so long as one of you doesn't mind climbing over the bed/partner to get into or out of bed :-) The dining area is squeezed to the back of the dining room into a small dark corner with no natural light. It was one of the things that tainted our experience of staying as we needed to use it a lot with young family. Unfortunately the kitchen is also positioned at the far end of a corridor away from the other rooms.||Wifi was slow and flaky. Being on the first floor we were also concerned about disturbing the suite of rooms below us. Particularly with our two active little uns :-/||||We found Brendan Cottage suited our needs, somewhere to stay, access to a washing machine, wifi, warm and able to dry out when necessary. However, the cost, we felt too high and really reflected its location as being in the Peak District and close...

I stayed at Monsal Cottage for three nights over the Easter weekend, with my wife. We booked very last minute so were lucky there was availability, but we're so glad there was!||||This is a lovely little collection of cottages and suites clustered around a central courtyard/parking area. There were four or five other parties there but the whole weekend was tranquil and quiet - we didn't hear a peep from the other cottages.||||The cottage itself was immaculately clean and very nicely presented. There were fresh flowers and a small carton of milk in the fridge. The furniture was comfortable, in great condition and really fitted the character of the cottages. We didn't really use any of the shared spaces but these were well equipped and again, immaculate. ||||It's an easy drive from Bakewell to the farm, and as it's so high up the views are spectacular. There's a sign on the main road so you can't miss the turning, which we were grateful for! ||The kitchen is well equipped for cooking if you choose to eat in. On our first night we ordered from Eastern Court, a Chinese in Bakewell that did deliver to the cottage. Highly recommended - the food arrived quickly and was delicious.||||The cottage is well situated for excursions - Castleton (caverns, Mam Tor and other walks) is approx 30 minutes away down narrow but quiet roads. Bakewell itself is less than five minutes away and is a really lovely town with friendly people and beautiful scenery. There is also the Monsal trail accessible from Bakewell, and Arbor Low/Gib Barrow is within 15 minutes - a very interesting archeological site.||||Overall this cottage was an excellent base for a short getaway, and we wish we could have stayed longer. We didn't meet the owners but didn't need to, as everything we needed was provided. They did call a couple of hours before check-in to give us information about how to access the cottage, etc., which was...