4-star self-catering holiday cottage near Malvern, Worcestershire

News

  • Four Star Gold Award maintained for 2013-2014

    Rhydd Barn ground floor
    “Spacious kitchen, excellent flooring and lighting and very good level of equipment”

    Rhydd Barn recently had its yearly assessment VisitEngland and we were very pleased to continue to achieve a Four Star award for self-catering and a Gold Award for high quality standards; also we continued to achieve the Speciality Award ‘Walkers Welcome’. The inspection was carried out on 19 April 2013.  Here are some highlights from the report:

    • “The property enjoys an very good location with excellent views”
    • “The provision of space is unique with an excellent choice of bathroom facilities”
    • “The guest information within the unit is extensive and well presented”
    • “Very good levels of cleanliness were observed”
    • “The kitchen has a very good range of equipment in a spacious area and has excellent flooring and lighting”

    The assessor stressed that to maintain this award long-term maintenance and development are important. She suggested some changes and improvements which we will implement during this year.

  • New television for Barn

    Sony Bravia KDL-19BX200BUWe have finally got around to replacing our trusty old ancient Sony television for an up to date wide screen Sony digital (Freeview) television!

    The old set was a Sony Trinitron KV-14T1U colour tv which appears to date from 1995 (at least this is the date of the instruction manual)—so I guess you could say we have had our money’s worth out of that set! It still works perfectly—there is

    nothing wrong with it—but we felt that people expect something more up to date nowadays, especially for a 4-star establishment.The old Sony Trinitron KV-14T1U

    The new set is a Sony Bravia KDL-19BX200BU (where do they get these ‘names’ from?) which we got in the John Lewis sale. It gets all the Freeview channels and will of course still work when the old analogue tv signal is switched off here in September.

  • Gold Award for Rhydd Barn!

    Rhydd Barn has just been awarded the extra accolade of a Gold Award after this year’s assessment by VisitBritain/EnjoyEngland. The Gold Award comes in addition to maintaining our Four Star (Self Catering) rating and is a well-deserved acknowledgment of all the work and love Rosemary has invested in the barn. To quote from EnjoyEngland’s Gold and Silver Awards web page: “VisitEngland’s unique Gold and Silver awards are given in recognition of exceptional quality within a property’s star rating, or for outperforming a star rating”.

  • Brochure improvements

    We have added more pictures to the Rhydd Barn Brochure and updated a few of the existing ones. Also made a few minor changes in layout and to the map on the back. You can download a copy of the brochure in PDF format from the link at the top of the sidebar to the right. It may take up to 30 seconds to download depending on the speed of your internet connection. The brochure is a summary of all the information on this site including the pictures.

    We are also adding more pictures to the site itself over the next few weeks and a few more new features will appear soon after.

  • Removal of ash tree

    Sadly, we have had to remove an ash tree which has been growing in ‘the dingle’ behind the barn. It was growing so close to the barn that it needed cutting back regularly to avoid branches touching the bedroom window and overhanging the roof.

    The tree was cut down, section by section, by the son of one of Rosemary’s cousins. Most of the timber will be used for firewood. Some branches were carefully stacked to one side of the dingle to make a habitat for invertebrates such as beetles.

    Having removed the tree, the whole space behind the barn is opened out and much lighter.

  • New washing machine

    A new washing machine was installed in the barn on Friday 13 November.

    It was bought from DAR (Malvern) Ltd., 101-105 Worcester Road, Link Top, Malvern,  WR14 1EP. They were very helpful: helping us to choose an appropriate machine and also installing it in the barn and taking the old machine machine. It is a Bosch WAA24171GB model which is exclusive to independent shops like DAR and also John Lewis.

  • Washing machine not working

    Our news pages are just so thrilling! It seems the washing machine in the barn is broken down and would cost as much to repair as buying a new one. In the meantime, alternative arrangements have been put in place so that washing can be done in another machine in a nearby building on the site. We hope to fit a new machine in November.

  • New website for Rhydd Barn

    We have now finished uploading and testing this new website for Rhydd Barn. It is still a work in progress but the main content from the old site is now all included. This  new site went ‘live’ on Tuesday, 20 October 2009.

    We have installed WordPress to run the site which gives us a lot more functionality. The old site was basically a hand coded ‘home page’ of the type common in the earlier days of the web. We can now more easily edit the site, add news items and pictures and have our own availability calendar. We would love, in time, to add pages about the history and reconstruction of Rhydd Barn and much more local information, including our favourite walks and places to visit.