Norton House Bed & Breakfast & Cottages

Lovely rejuvenated early 18th century building. Warm welcome from the owner. Tastefully decorated, featuring many sculptures by the artist wife of the partnership and including a gallery of works by local artists and creators. Parking easy, inside the gates or on the road immediately outside. Location good, near to many places to visit.

Sadly, this NYE week was freezing around the Wye Valley area and the central heating came on at odd times - 5.30 am (when the owner got up to prepare for his busy day) and off at 8.30 (when we got up, having a few days' break to avoid loud fireworks around our home in Bristol).The evening period switched off at 8 pm! An oil-fired heater was provided, which stopped us freezing, but they don't really warm up a room. When I mentioned the cold room to the owner, he said we could have left the heater on all the time. Knowing the forecast, he should have told us at the beginning not as we were leaving, a day early. I don't like to sit in bed wrapped up to watch evening TV, but until we asked there was only 1 chair. The wi-fi is not brilliant, limiting viewing options and access to others on a laptop. Perhaps Booking.com should have grades for wi-fi quality - high quality won't be needed by all, but we had hoped for it.

Private access. Very quiet considering it was so near to a busy road. Had all the amenities you needed for a really comfortable stay.

WiFi was not working but we were told about this on arrival. It didn’t really bother us that much. We also thought it would have been much nearer to pubs/restaurants/takeaways than it was.

Craig was incredibly friendly and helpful, the room was cosy and warm, bed very comfortable and I very much enjoyed a really hot bath. Breakfast was delicious, and the kettle in the room was a welcome addition. Short walk to a lovely pub where they squeezed us in for a drink and some food despite being really busy. Being right next to the main road isn't ideal but the noise didn't disturb us (and I'm very sensitive!)

Historic and quirky

Nothing

This is a brilliant cottage, which is very conveniently located near the A40 between Monmouth and Ross on Wye. The cottage is very spacious, with a very generous open plan kitchen/dinner/lounge. The host, Craig, communicated very well before we arrived and made us feel at home when we arrived. The cottage was well equipped for cooking, although we didn't really make use of that facility. The A40 is only about 150m from the cottage, but we couldn't hear it at all. Whitchurch is only small, but Woods of Whitchurch is an excellent little village store and restaurant and is an essential stop in the village.