This review is in 3 parts:
HOLLY COTTAGE - the cottage itself is lovely, I bet it had real wow factor when it was first renovated and it has at some point had a lot of money spent on it. But there are some maintenance issues that need attending to: front door needs repairing (rot), it needs repainting and the door handle fixing, a couple of the windows have some of the beading that needs replacing, the kickplate under the sink needs adjusting as it drops off every time you open the dishwasher door (watch your toes!), one of the cupboard doors has a broken hinge, the extractor in the bathroom doesn't work.
Also the cleaning needs improving, most of the basics of the cottage were fine although the bottom of both loos weren't clean, the internal windows need cleaning, the patio door in particular was really mucky, the oven and all of the pans/grills in the oven and in the cupboard need cleaning properly, they are full of grease and haven't been cleaned in a long time.
All of the above issues are easily fixed and this alone wouldn't have necessarily put us off going back. I do understand that doing bigger cleaning jobs is difficult in high season but I don't believe that these jobs couldn't have been done given the cottage must have had lots of empty weeks up until now.
CAR PARKING - the cottage has no dedicated parking space. We were lucky as we managed to find somewhere near the cottage every time we went out although we did have to drive round a few times waiting for someone to go. Also the weather was warm and dry so less of an issue. But I wouldn't like to be at the cottage in high season with a car load of kids and a dog and it raining, I just don't think it would be possible to park near the cottage when it's busy given there are 3 pubs nearby. The main issue is that we couldn't see where you could park long stay - the nearest pay and display car park was maximum 2 hours.
EDINBURGH INN - whilst there are 2 pubs very close to the cottage, the issue we had was with the Edinburgh Inn. The pub and it's 'beer garden' rang alonside the cottage and its garden. If you go to bed after midnight every night you could probably tolerate the noise, however if you want to go to bed any earlier, no chance! The main bedroom looks down on the beer garden (to the left) and it was impossible to sleep, we moved to the front bedroom on the first night. This wouldn't be possible if there were 4 of you in the cottage. We still got disturbed in the front but if we shut all the internal doors we were able to manage.
The noise on Wednesday 23rd March was appalling, screaming, shouting and foul mouthed language. We thought at one point there was a fight and were going to phone the Police at one point.
Oddly enough the following night (our last night) it was very quiet, the beer garden was in darkness and there was nobody out there, I'm not sure if there had been a complaint.
We totally understand that having a property in the middle of the small town and near pubs (although we didn't realise how near the Edinburgh was) you would expect some noise, but this level was unacceptable.
If we hadn't been able to move to another bedroom then I strongly suspect we would have come home early and you would have formal complaint.
The holiday company need to make people aware of this issue or ideally get the problem sorted. I am not sure if the beer garden has been created because of COVID but if it stays it will never be any different. It's such a shame because this property has the potential to be a great place but unfortunately we wouldn't ever consider going back.
I have photos of all the issues that I am mentioning if you or the owners would like to see them.