“Our weekend stay at Skyfall in Bath was a nightmare from start to finish. Upon arrival, we were greeted not by a clean and welcoming home, but by a disaster zone that needed a deep clean before we could even consider staying. Here are just some of the issues we faced:
Unclean House: Dust covered every surface, making it clear that the place hadn't been cleaned in a long time.
Dirty Cutlery and Crockery: Every piece of cutlery and crockery had to be washed before use. It was disgusting.
Unfinished Decor: The house was still undergoing decorating, with unfinished wet plastering.
Filthy Fridge and Cupboards: The fridge was unclean, and the cupboards contained old, expired food. Kitchen cupboards didn’t open properly and posed a health risk.
Disgusting Bathroom: We found poo in the toilet. Yes, you read that correctly.
Mouldy Plants: There was mould growing on the indoor plants.
Lack of Storage: There were no proper storage facilities for clothes.
Dead Flies: We encountered numerous old, dead flies throughout the house.
Broken Dishwasher: The dishwasher broke down, and to top it off, I nearly cut myself on a piece of glass found in the filter.
Overgrown Garden: The garden was overgrown and looked like it hadn’t been tended to in months.
We contacted the owner immediately, hoping for a resolution, but she took no accountability whatsoever. Her attitude was dismissive and rude. With conditions so appalling, we decided to leave the property a night earlier than planned. Since our departure, the owner has been borderline harassing one of the girls in our group, bombarding her with emails and demanding money for damages that are entirely fabricated. In reality, we left the house in better condition than we found it, thanks to the extensive cleaning we had to do.
Her attitude is not only unprofessional but also downright horrendous. The fact that she has the audacity to claim we caused damage is beyond belief. We booked through Airbnb and have made them aware of this situation.
Please, do not book Skyfall or any properties managed by this owner. There is clearly something very dodgy going on here, and her behavior might even be illegal. Trust me, she sounds mentally unstable and could potentially be a danger. Save yourself the trouble and book elsewhere. This experience was an absolute nightmare and one we hope no one else has to endure.”
“A group of 15 stayed at Starfall/Skyfall for a hen party recently, 1 star is too good!
The first of the party to arrive on the Friday had to clean the kitchen/dining area including washing of cutlery and crockery. They did this prior to the hen arriving so as not to impact the celebrations.
However on further investigation the entire house was not exactly clean with cobwebs, old cobwebs, not ones recently made by a hungry spider, dust in abundance, and what I can only describe as mouse droppings in the singular toilet. On using the dishwasher it leaked out from underneath, pbroken glass was found in the filter, and when washing up at the sink that resulted with a flood also.
Prior to leaving on the Sunday, after paying for an extra night too which was decided against, the host was contacted to advise of the leak.
She was incredibly offhand and unhelpful, going so far as to accuse us of breaking the dishwasher and in relation to the dust and cobwebs that this was because the house was set in the countryside
Airbnb were contacted, sent photos and videos and could only apologise for the condition of the property and the attitude of said host.
The host is contesting our complaints, even going so far as to accuse us of damaging paintwork on the walls, the walls were not even painted !!
All in all I would not recommend this property.”
“I don't even know where to start here... we booked to stay at Starfall house (Skyfall house) last weekend and this house was a huge disappointment.
On arrival the house was clearly not cleaned before we arrived
- dead flies (very old dead flies) all over the place
- stool stains in the toilets
- MOULD growing on fake plants/ flowers around the house
- carpets upstairs and downstairs had obvious dust piles that could have been avoided if the house had actually been cleaned!
- broken fridge shelf
I could go on and on but I'll leave it there, you get the idea - not cleaned to a proper high standard especially when you're paying so much for the weekend.
During our stay, we had ongoing issues with the kitchen cupboards and drawers, not closing properly causing a risk of tripping over/ hitting yourself as you walked around the kitchen.
The dishwasher/ sink LEAKED all the time and one of the girls tried to clean the dishwasher filter and discovered GLASS in the dishwasher (nothing to do with us) again so dangerous and not a fully functioning kitchen.
No rooms apart from the downstairs room with ensuite had anywhere to hang clothes? Very odd.
Out of the three bathrooms only one had a functioning shower, the other two showers were over the bath with no attachment to use as an actual shower (not disclosed before booking the property) so 16 adults had to use one shower unless they wanted a bath which lets be honest not a lot of people do these days.
Downstairs toilet had an awful smell and dead flies all around the toilet/ sink area.
The outside although it was lovely and big hasn't been looked after in a while, very overgrown and could do with some TLC.
All of this to be honest could have been overlooked as it didn't take away from the lovely weekend we had together as we didn't want it to ruin our stay HOWEVER the host/ owner of this property???
Absolutely vile human being, we raised the areas of concern before checking out so they are aware and could fix for future guests and what we have had to deal with since has being nothing short of disgusting!
For starters, the name she used to advertise the house isn't even her name (that should say all you need to know, SCAMMER) and when we raised our concerns she instantly blamed us for the issues - telling us we caused the leak, we broke the glass when they couldn't be further from the truth! There was no apologies for the state of the house when we arrived, she straight away tried to turn it around on us and rather than rectifying the situation she is now tryna to charge us an obscene amount of money for damages to her property?! We didn't leave any damages! We actually left the house in a much better state than when we got there!
This woman is vile, she's rude, she's an absolute scam "artist" and I would never ever recommend any of her properties to anyone. Stay away please! We just want to forget about it and move on, and she's harassing one of the ladies with email after email and now demanding money from us.
Don't do it, there are other properties, please don't put anymore money in the this woman's dirty pockets. If I could leave 0 stars I would.”
“I am amazed that this company is still in business as when I went to the Small Claims Court I was told that it had gone into liquidation. I and many other people paid deposits for a stay at Canford Dairy, one of the properties handled by Country Holiday House. My deposit was paid then I was told that the booking could not be honoured but I would not get my money back. I am still waiting!!”
“Comfortable, relaxing Hen Weekend
A group of 16 of us stayed at Skyfall for my hen weekend in June. Arrival was very straight forward. There were a couple of very minor issues out of Sarah's control but when I emailed her about this, she was very quick to respond (within in the hour) and provided a resolution.
There was a little dust but nothing really nothing major and it is to be expected of a rural property that isn't lived in daily so this is really clutching at straws and by no way a serious complaint.
The beds were very comfortable and clean and we all slept well. That bathrooms were spotless. The kitchen was very well equipped (with a separate utility area) and had everything we could possibly need for our stay. A nice large open space for our group which opened out onto the garden. The garden is beautiful and well maintained with plenty of outdoor seating. The hot tub was set up ready for us to use and it was spotlessly clean.
We all thoroughly enjoyed our stay and the property gave us the best of both worlds - rural enough that we didn't disturb others but close enough to Bath for us to have an evening out.
I wouldn't be put off by the negative comments - I assume these are a result of the pandemic which obviously had it's unfortunate impact on holiday makers and small business owners alike.”
“AWFUL!!!!!!! do not book this place unless u want to loose your security bond!!! Pictures can be deceiving…. Not very clean at all! Unsafe beds! When leaving they make out things are wrong to hold on to your desposit! Managers attitude absalutley stinks! All round vile experience,,, save your money!”
“I would suggest NOT booking this as a place to stay! Cleanliness not great! Bunk beds very unsafe! If there’s a problem over the weekend you get no response! Not all what it seems to be on the pictures! Owner is reluctant to giving back deposits and is very rude! Wouldn’t recommend”
“DO NOT BOOK THIS HOUSE. We couldn’t visit in 2020 due to government covid-19 rules and reluctantly Sarah transferred our booking until 2021. She had our full balance payment for 18 months. Two weeks before we were due to visit in Oct 2021, she informed us that we could not stay due to a double booking. Terrible customer service and it took us 3 weeks to receive a refund. Luckily, we found and stayed somewhere much nicer in Cornwall. Do not trust the company. If you do, prepare to be disappointed and treated badly.”
“We booked Spring House in Hidden Valley, Cosham through countryholidayhouse.com back in January as it was my partner's special birthday in July. The whole family of ten had booked time off for this and this included 3 grand children. We dealt with a woman (she went under two names, but probably the same person) who seemed to be slightly off-hand to start with but became easier to deal with. We paid a deposit and a final payment in March. We contacted the woman again on a Monday, five days before our holiday was due and she confirmed that the booking was all complete and we could pick the keys up on the Friday. Imagine to my horror when the very next morning, two days before our holiday, I received an email from her stating that our holiday was cancelled due to double booking. She had decided to give the property to another family who allegedly also booked Spring House.
This left us with only two days to find another property which caused great stress to my partner and three young and very upset grand children. We took her to task over this and we said she was in breach of the contract. If the tables had turned and we had cancelled two days prior, she would have kept all of our money. She offered us an alternative accommodation but as we had already booked excursions and restaurants which were nontransferrable, the new location was not ideal and it was for three days only! As we had a receipt for our confirmed booking, I told Sarah that if I did not have the money back in my account within 12 hours, I would be arriving, as scheduled at the property on Friday. Her response was "why would you upset another family?". She obviously did not consider our family's distress and how much trouble she had caused and the terrible disappointment to our children and grand children. I also stated that I would be putting this matter into the hands of my solicitor whereupon the money was returned to my account.
This has probably been one of the worst experiences we have had to deal with. We would advise no one to deal with contryholidayhouse.com. Just by reading the reviews and the given star ratings should tell you to avoid this one like the plague.
Update: We have had a reply from the owner of the house to say they gave us a refund straight away after they noticed that they had doubled booked. My answer to this is as follows: we are not the only people that have had our holiday cancelled by countryholidayhouse.com, other customer reviews also state they have had the same treatment. Having spoken to the owner on a Monday (3 days before our holiday) to confirm that our holiday is all set, then to receive an email on a Tuesday to say the holiday is cancelled due to a double booking is totally unacceptable. This would suggest that the owner's administrative skills are very much below par and as a customer, you would be taking a chance as to whether or not your holiday is secure if you book with countryholidayhouse.com”
“Due to the coronavirus pandemic, only 1 household can go away during our dates. We have asked for a refund as there are 15 of us and the lady reports this not being her problem! She refuses to give a refund and expects 1 person to go for the weekend, costing £2000!
No other dates that she can offer us. Totally unreasonable.
Avoid if you don't want to lose your money!!! Book elsewhere.”
“We had a great time last August, and have just rebooked for next time. Lovely people, very helpful. Booking process was simple, and we LOVED the house”
“We went there as a business team and it had great space to work as a team. The Kitchen / Dining space is outstanding and really brought the outside in. It's Eco house design was innovative and welcoming. With the house being about 10 minutes from the centre of Bath (in a car) it was ideal to pop in and get the best of Bath whilst enjoying a rural idyll. The beds were very comfortable and the whole place was ideal for our needs.”
“Had a great school reunion with 15 friends a few weekends ago at Skyfall (Starfall) which was well stocked for that many people with a great decor combining the old and the new! Easily big enough for the 16 of us, with a hot tub to unwind in the evening. Great walks straight from the barn! Would stay again!”
“The most beautiful house and grounds. Children and adults loved the space and games room . An open fire every night was the perfect end to the days .”
“We loved our stay with Country Holiday House. We had a large group of 15 and the house suited us perfectly, where we were able to all pitch in around the kitchen table for breakfast and adjourn to a more formal setting for dinner in the converted barn’s library.”
“We had a wonderful time at The Old Manor. There was a large group of us and the house accommodated us all perfectly. I would absolutely recommend staying here.”
“we had a fabulous time at the Old Manor House in Almer, Blandford Forum. The house was well furnished and equipped with everything you could possibly want. The games room too! We hope to be revisiting in the future and so are our friends.”
