“We stayed at the Forge in early November.”
Not a good time of year in terms of temperature and daylight and the weather was generally a bit grey. Having said that, this did not spoil the visit as the area is beautiful. The days we went to the coast were also brighter and the beaches and sea views were stunning. Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh castle and Alnmouth well worth a visit. St Aidan’s church in Bamburgh is a must visit even if you are not religious. We would definitely come back to the area.
With regards to The Forge. It was a good base from which to visit the various attractions, the coast and the Breamish Valley. The bedroom (we only used the double room) was nicely furnished and the bed was very comfortable. The kitchen was reasonably well-equipped and the lounge seating was sufficient.
However, as they say first impressions are very important and on this note, when we arrived the place was in darkness and with no heating on, so was cold and unwelcoming. Apart from the ‘welcoming aspect’, generally, we think there are a few things that would make the kitchen-lounge area more cosy. The lounge area only had one large lamp in the far-side corner of the room. In the evening this didn’t really cast sufficient light if you want to sit on the sofa, rather than the chair, and read. The other side of the room by the TV was dark. While there are sufficient over-head spotlights (albeit with some bulbs not working) this sort of lighting is quite stark. We also found the heating insufficient in the kitchen/lounge area. The storage heaters have been decommissioned and replaced by a large hot air blower. The hot air blower warmed the kitchen area, but this heat did not really penetrate into the lounge. We had to have the wood burning stove on all the time when we were in the house although, as this was a very small stove, it did not seem to generate much heat. Some of the rope seal was missing around the door and this may have contributed to the difficulty we had in controlling the air-flow to the fire. A lot of heat seemed to, literally, go up the chimney. Heating in the bathroom was also only adequate if the fan heater was on.
On a positive note, the cottage had an extensive collection of DVDs, although we would have appreciate a DVD player in the lounge, particularly if there were four guests, as otherwise you had to sit in the bedroom to watch the films. The bread, milk etc., as the arrival pack was appreciated too.
We hope this review does not seem too negative but we think the potential of The Forge for a cosy get-away is not fully realised.
Firstly we did speak to you when you first arrived regarding the lights and heating not being on and apologised and we can only apologise again it was human error.
Thank you for your comments on the Forge we do find your remarks negative and we would like to point out a couple of issues, we think the rest of the cottage speaks for itself.
Firstly the heating is the modern ground force heat which has a button on the remote control to circulate the heat which you obviously didn’t have on, this heating is 7 kilowatts in the lounge/kitchen.The log burner is also 7 kilowatts which is more than ample heating for this area.We reside down south and stay in Northumberland in the cottage in the winter months and we only have either the air heating on or the log burner because it is to hot.
The lounge /Kitchen is roughly 20"x35" there are 12 lights and a large standing light and 5 windows and we are totally confused how it can be dark.
Sykes owner relations