Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District
Romantic cottages for two in the Peak District
‘Doris’ has just blown through and no damage at Orchard Farm Parwich. The days are getting longer. the spring flowers are starting to poke their heads through, the snowdrops are in full bloom at Hopton Hall so why not treat yourselves to a few days away. There are still a few days available in Tom’s Barn before the end of April but more choice of days in Douglas’s Barn. This barn is warm and cosy and there is plenty of space to relax in. The jaccuzzi bath is delightful after a days activity. There are plenty of places to wander to from Parwich and the newly refurbished pub offers a good menu so why not treat yourself to a few days away in the Peak District.
The Parwich Church, Hall & Legion are holding there Christmas Fayre on Sunday 4th December. The fayre will be opened by the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Denise Brown at 3pm. The church is open 3 – 5pm, the Hall and Legion 4-6pm. The Chameleon Choral Coir will perform in the Hall and the Legion and there will be lots of stalls with gifts decorations, cards, wreaths, homemade food raffles and homemade crafts and much more. A BBq is planned and there will be mulled wine in the church. To support the fayre we have put a decorated Christmas Tree from Orchard Farm and Tom and Douglas’s guests.
We got married at Parwich Church on 16 September 2016 at 12noon so now are Mr and Mrs Roebuck. We had our reception at Tissington Hall followed on the Saturday with a Garden Party at Orchard Farm. Great celebrations lasted for 3 days. Here are a couple of photos
Do have a look at this lovely Peak District official video, with a most haunting melody… The message is – ‘Come to the Peak District, no matter how!’ and we could add the rider, having got to the Peak District, why not come here, why not get to Tom’s or Douglas’s Barns if you can!
Get here if you can and we’d love to see you…!
That was somewhat cheap jumping onto the bandwagon sort of comment but there was an element of seriousness. We are so small and can only have two couples at the most at a time. For every booking we turn away sometimes dozens of people ringing up and emailing on the off-chance the date has suddenly become available and of course we’ll never know how many just check the online availability hopefully, and see for themselves that the dates they want are already taken. Others may assume – wrongly – that the availability is not updated or we may have at random marked off dates to look busier than we are. We never ever would do the latter, and the SuperControl availability is pretty well 100% up to date. The only time it wouldn’t be would be if someone had contacted us to book while we were out and not within reach of computers and online booking systems.
One wants to make people happy and it can be very difficult disappointing someone who has set their hearts on a special date. Once it was quite amusing: unwilling to accept my assurance that both barns were booked on a certain date, the voice on the phone lost patience. “Well,” she said shortly, ” if you can’t help me please hand me over to someone who can!”. Of course I couldn’t do either but she wasn’t convinced.
Anyway, our message is, do watch this video. Do come to the Peak District – there’s nowhere lovelier. And If you are thinking about coming here, to either Tom’s or Douglas’s Barns and you know when, do get in touch (and if it’s before the end of 2011 so much the better for you as you will be benefiting from the old prices). If you are not immediately sure of being able to get time off work we can happily reserve a date for a day or two while you get the go-ahead from work. And if you are worried about booking dates far in advance, that we do understand. However, there really should be no need to worry. We have altered dates and accepted cancellation on lots of occasions and been able to rebook the dates almost immediately. As we all know it is the last minute cancellations which cause the problem when the fees are still due and we cannot re-let the dates however hard we try; the only way to be sure to avoid any risk of that possibility is to take out holiday cancellation insurance. We think that some banks offer that with your account so it would be worth checking that out too as a free alternative – it’s silly to pay if you don’t need to.
Meanwhile, to repeat, get here if you can and we’d love to see you!
Our local Peak District Premier Cottages group of ‘the very best 4 and 5 star holiday cottage owners’ locally are setting up a very exciting scheme of discounted prices for our guests at various appropriate local attractions, products and restaurants.
Each set of guests will be find a laminated ‘privilege card’ on their set of keys while they are staying, which they will show to the relevant destination to receive the price discount, free pudding etc… The scheme is already up and running although the list is still growing; I have put it up now on a new page within the Tom’s Barn and Douglas’s Barn Facebook site which I can keep updating but you can also click on this link to see the current version from the Peak District Premier Cottages Facebook page.
I already know that Haddon Hall is starting in the autumn (when their tills have been re-calibrated to cope with this special situation) and Sally Mosley’s Guided Walks are offering a 10% discount off her walks which will make them even more enticing and there are numerous other concessions in the pipeline.
We had long been planning, although somewhat dreamily, about updating the side tables and bedside cabinets in Tom’s Barn. They were all part of the original furniture eleven years ago when Tom’s Barn was born; they had seen good service but even eleven years ago were not exactly from the toppest of ‘top drawers.
Our dream were rapidly forced into reality when the last inspector agreed all too readily with our suggestion that they were due for replacement, and also the easy chair which although still relatively new and expensively upholstered had never recovered from an ‘expert’ dry cleaning by a firm in Sheffield which seemed to do nothing but accentuate any slight marks already there (and why we had it cleaned in the first place)…
We rapidly found a new chair made by a furniture maker in Brailsford, and that has been in the barn for some time now (unfortunately not too visibly in these photo. We also asked a local joiner to make some oak furniture (coffee table, two side tables and two bedside cabinets). The six weeks we were quoted stretched into about ten, but never mind, handmade and all looking brilliant they arrived today – so we hadn’t been dreaming all along, after all…!
Fortunately it was changeover day, so in went the new stuff, and out came the old. And guess where it went? All to our house!! We are always quite happy with the cast-offs, and can guarantee they’ll be comfortable even if past their sell-by date.
A few of John’s photos are here but for masses more taken by John this afternoon, look at our gallery.
Well, try as we might we simply could not open our online QiT (Visit England Quality in Tourism) report but after after a couple of frustrating and somewhat worrying days the QiT office had to send another version which worked like a charm, to reveal no unpleasant surprise after all!
As always there appear to be anomalies and inconsistencies but perhaps that is only to be expected. The inspectors are only human and in a tick box system there is little scope for subtleties or explanation – the answer is either Yes or No, Black or White. As much as we might moan about the system and its sometimes hard to fathom priorities, having a nationally accepted grading system must on the whole be a good thing: it gives some sort of an idea to prospective quests of the kind of standard to expect nor avoid, and it does keep us owners on our toes.
At the moment however there is consternation in the QiT ranks since it was suggested that the government intended to phase the official star rating out completely and rely instead on TripAdvisor on the grounds that a) it would save the government money and b) more and more holiday makers make their minds up on the strength of online reviews rather than on ecstatic comments written by owners themselves, or indeed on official QiT star gradings.
We really value our reviews on TripAdvisor; however, it would be hard to see how they could replace an objective national ‘grading’ system. Reviews on TripAdvisor can be anonymous, they are subjective, can be malicious or have apparently even been composed by over keen owners themselves.
Anyway, so much for all that and back to the current system… Our overall score is 92% and once again, 100% for cleanliness! We have some more improvements in the pipeline so things can only get even better. We have already bought a new chair for Tom’s Barn, and are having the footstool recovered; we have two oak bedside cabinets, two side tables and a coffee table being made by a local joiner. It will be Douglas’s Barn’s turn next.
But the crucial ‘to do’ is to buy a set of smaller tumblers for both barns or we apparently, suddenly (the first we have heard of this) do not meet minimum standards for 5 Stars! It would be a shame to go down a grade for the sake for six small tumblers…
Some of our guests who have booked winter breaks and are concerned about the weather may find the following links and information helpful:
Local weather conditions for BBC reports for Ashbourne – they do a five day visual report and an all-singing/all-dancing one which is worth just watching for its entertainment value!
Local road conditions for BBC Travel News for the area
Very local reports from the Parwich website (locals email in with reports on local roads and conditions)
Conditions in and around Buxton for those coming from the north and north west
You may find the Wintery Fun photos in the Gallery amusing but disregard the first page which were taken in Jan/Feb this year (2010).
Our responsibility is to have everything ready for you when you arrive and we will do our best to ensure the barns are ready warm and waiting for you, beds made (those Hungarian goose-down duvets…), fires on, relaxing music playing quietly in the back ground and freshly made cake on the table.
If the final stretch up the slope to Orchard Farm is perilous, park your car safely down at the bottom somewhere below the Road Narrows sign and let us know you have arrived; we’ll come down on foot with borrowed sledge to ferry your belongings up, perhaps with the help of a hot drink or even a nip or two of something stronger.
Getting here is your responsibility. Obviously, if it became quite impossible to get to Parwich we would let you know but decisions about all other aspects of your journey are up to you; where you are coming from and in what sort of vehicle all make a big difference and we cannot possibly advise.
We may be nearly full this year, but 2011 is wide open with only a couple of bookings to date (four to be exact).
At the moment the silly problem is that until we have entered prices, no one can book online. The obvious answer is to decide on prices but how does one anticipate what will be the cost of oil, electricity, insurance, business tax, not to mention all the bits and bobs we always put in to the barns to make our guests’ lives easier…?
So we have come to the conclusion we will try to make an intelligent estimate, aiming higher rather than too low – one can always reduce a price but it is not good practice to increase a price once it has been advertised.
During 2010 any price increase for 2011 is all irrelevant anyway, because anyone booking this year uses this year’s prices
When you book online we will automatically discount the advertised price when we process the payment.
At least it will mean if you want to plan ahead you now can book next year to your heart’s content. However, it will be more important than ever that you seriously consider taking out holiday cancellation insurance.
Rest assured that if your plans change and you need to change your dates some time beforehand we can usually arrange that, with time in hand. It will just incur a nominal £10 ‘botheration’ admin charge. If we have to advertise the dates at a discounted rate, we will pass on what we receive, less the £10.
It is the last minute cancellations or need to change dates that happen too late for us to re-sell the dates that would leave you still having to pay for the holiday although unable to take it. From our point of view, we would almost certainly have let the dates given enough time. It is only fair that it is you and not we who bear the responsibility for the cost of the cancelled holiday. Holiday cancellation insurance does seem the answer!
We have two quite exciting technological developments to tell you about.
The first is that we now have been able to seriously boost the strength of our wireless internet connection.
For a long time we have offered wireless internet access in both barns; at first only a minority of guests seemed to use it but these days very many/most our guests bring their own laptops and access the internet without a problem. For those few guests who thanks to our incredibly thick stone walls struggle always to get a signal in the further reaches of Tom’s Barn we have a motley supply of boosters; if all else fails we have on a couple of occasions lent our own laptop, which leads nicely on to the next exciting news item!
The second development we are even more excited about.
We are going to provide a (very dinky little) Sony Netbook in each barn for our guests’ use.
We are busy setting up some useful links to helpful local services so if you want to research – maybe even book online – local eateries, art galleries or theatres you can do so from the comfort of your cottage.
Also, if you don’t want to bring your own laptop all you need do is load vital folders and files onto a dongle and – bob’s your uncle!
The netbooks are beautifully neat and light, with a 10″ screen so probably not perfect if you are working on an enormous architectural project or composing a symphony but perfect for most other things.
I have had the pleasure of managing Tom and Douglas Barns for 10 Years and felt it was time to enjoy a bit more of my retirement. The barns will continue to be holiday cottages and will be maintained to the standard that all previous guests have enjoyed. The only change is that Sykes Cottages […]
The weather is a bit mixed but we are still getting sunny days. A perfect time of year to come and stay for a few days and have a walk in the lovely countryside, take a bike ride, visit one of the many attractions that all stay open or just relax in Tom or Douglas […]
The weather has been so wet but our barns offer a cosy retreat in beautiful countryside. Why not pack a bag for a few days and have a break . We have extended our spring prices until mid June and reduced our summer prices. It would be lovely to see you for a few days […]
