“PROS: The barn is a beautiful old house, with tons of rustic charm and character and the central atrium entrance is particularly stunning.”
It is quite large so plenty of space and we liked that the bedrooms were at opposite ends of the building ensuring privacy from the in laws who visited and stayed with us for 4 of our 7 night stay. The beds were super king and the bedding was really soft and comfortable. The private secured little garden is great for the dogs and there were a further 2 really lovely areas where the dogs could play. The kitchen was well equipped and the sofa and TV area very comfortable. The owner was helpful ...
It is quite large so plenty of space and we liked that the bedrooms were at opposite ends of the building ensuring privacy from the in laws who visited and stayed with us for 4 of our 7 night stay. The beds were super king and the bedding was really soft and comfortable. The private secured little garden is great for the dogs and there were a further 2 really lovely areas where the dogs could play. The kitchen was well equipped and the sofa and TV area very comfortable. The owner was helpful when we needed a fan in one of the rooms and she was also helpful in recommending some pubs and places to visit. There is a utility area with a ton of tourist information flyers and maps, which I found useful when planning days out.
CONS: We found dog hair (not ours) all over the sofas and cobwebs in the ceilings on the wooden beams. Whilst we appreciate this is a old barn, this could have been easily rectified with a deeper clean between guests. The front door double height glass entrance had dozens of dead flies stuck to the glass :-(. The front entrance was also tired with weeds and piles of leaves which again could have been swept up and tidied between guests. My husband also didn't appreciate being 'told off' by the owner for using the wrong hoover to clean up sand from the back seat of our car :-(. The owner did in fact tell me that they weren't able to afford the rates of local cleaners so they have taken to cleaning the property themselves. The property is located in a quiet residential road but there is nothing else nearby other than residential properties. The nearest pub was several miles away, and there were no shops within walking distance. This means we needed to drive everywhere with quite considerable distances and times involved, i.e. a day trip to the north Norfolk coast was a 3 hour round trip! This was a big issue for us as we spent so much of our time driving but we do appreciate this was mostly our fault as we didn't sufficiently note the distances involved and we didn't quite appreciate how large Norfolk was (so not a criticism of The Barn or Sykes).
