Self Catering in East Sussex - Beckley

Probably best in the summer
The property is beautifully situated, comfortable and warm. Excellent if you have a dog. There's a good walk from the house to Rye. A couple of issues that need addressing. The road to the cottage, in the winter is very difficult to negotiate if you don't have a 4x4. the potholes could easily be filled in, but " its not the owners responsibility". If 6 people are staying there are not enough plates and bowls. Finally the tone of the owners instruction manual resembles a rather uptight school teacher. not very welcoming or appropriate for somewhere that costs over £1000 a week.
Mike C
2020-01-06

No heating / hot water, rude unhelpful owner
Upon arrival it was evident that the heating and hot water didn't work. We called the owner Tim several times and he didn't reply for several hours. In the meantime, we checked the manual, which was actually very rude and patronising and included instructions on how to use the door handles(?!), and which was of no help at all. When we finally got hold of Tim, he then proceeded to tell us that he had similar problems with the heating recently (which begs the question "why are you still taking bookings when your heating is not working?"). He told us to check the fuse etc and told us to "just persevere with it". We persevered to not avail. Tim told us his maintenance man was coming the next morning to look at something else so we can ask him to check the heating. As we were in the middle of nowhere and far from home and because it was so late, we decided to try to stay one night, but it was far too cold. The maintenance man was nice and helpful but he said he wasn't able to fix the heating or hot water and it required and engineer. Tim offered us a nearby house but this did not have enough beds for us and it had a musty smell. We ended up seeking alternative accommodation from Sykes Cottages but by the time they were able to get us something we had stayed in this house for 2 nights, 2 nights that Tim refused to give us any kind of refund for. He was rude, obnoxious, unhelpful and patronising to us and appears to only care about financial gain.
Beth R
2020-01-03

First couple of days of our mid-December break ruined by having no heating or hot water
First couple of days of our mid-December break ruined by having no heating or hot water. After attempting to fix the heating issue ourselves for hours under the owner's instructions, it was apparent that it couldn?t be rectified. The owner offered us a less than appealing nearby alternative to sleep/shower in. When we did try the showers there was only hot water for the first two minutes then it also ran cold. We couldn?t vacate the property any earlier as we had a food delivery arriving on the second day in the evening which couldn?t be changed, so we had no choice but to stay. Due to the freezing cold conditions we had to purchase a heater, wasting yet more time and money. In addition, there was also a blocked drain, sewage smell in the downstairs bathroom/bedrooms, hairs all over the bathroom floors and dirty crockery & glassware which all needed cleaning (in cold water) before use. The house manual was also very patronising and gave a bad impression before even arriving. We didn?t raise these points initially as they were all things we were willing to overlook. We fully appreciate that heating and water issues happen from time to time and cannot be helped, but it was the way in which it was handled that was the real issue. Thankfully the holiday letting agents managed to find us alternative accommodation for the remaining 5 days of our holiday but the inconvenience of it all didn?t seem to be acknowledged by the owner, nor did we receive a proper apology. We were offered compensation of just over half the price of one nights stay, which when divided between our party of 6 was certainly not adequate reimbursement. It leads me to believe that customer satisfaction is not high up on the owner's list of priorities. Overall we're very disappointed and would not recommend Boxwood Retreat, which is a shame as the house itself was nice, just very poorly managed.
CDine1987
2020-01-03