Manor House, Hawes

On arrival we found the dishwasher to be full of the previous occupants' dishes, the grill pan and rack to be covered in grease and food crumbs and the freezer compartment in the small fridge in the kitchen was blocked up with bag of ice cubes that had morphed into one big iceberg. There were placemats on the floor of the sitting room, presumably where the previous occupants had left them and there was a recycling box full of bottles on the pavement outside the back gate. All of this made us question the standard of housekeeping and cleaning. There property itself did not live up to the description and photographs online. The so-called snug was anything but. It is cold, dark austere and has one settee that can seat four people but for any more guests there are just a couple of hard wooden chairs. The tv n the room had Freeview available through an aerial. but is not a smart tv and therefore there are no streaming or catch up services available on it. By contrast, the sitting room is warm and comfortable but the tv in there is not connected to an aerial so has no terrestrial channels available but does have Netflix, Prime and BBC iPlayer. It is still not a proper smart tv though, and although it is obviously connected to the wifi there is no facility to connect to the internet or download any other Apps such as ITVx, Channel 4 or Channel 5. This all means that whatever room you chose to sit in your viewing options are restricted. Given the money that has clearly been spent elsewhere this seems odd. The en-suite bedroom is exactly that, the toilet, shower and basin are right there in the room with you, with no door, screen or even a curtain separating them. We therefore chose to sleep in the "gothic" room, and while the bed was comfortable, there is an incongruous free-standing bath between the bed and window which makes the room very cramped and awkward to navigate, with no room for a wardrobe. Given the age of the property and the exposed wooden floorboards with quite large gaps, the bath also seems somewhat impractical. The main bathroom is beautifully fitted out but the window, which is not frosted or opaque and has no curtain or bind, looks directly onto the house across the road, meaning that the occupants can see whoever is in the shower until the window steams up! The external areas are very small and dog owners should be aware that while it is enclosed it is not secure and there are many escape routes! All in all we found to be very disappointing and won don't chose to stay again. Other people may be perfectly happy with it but we do not feel that the online description is as honest as it could be. There are areas that are very good, the owners have obviously spent a lot of money on the bathrooms but we feel that the living areas have been neglected.