4-star holiday cottage near Malvern, Worcestershire
Here are some photographs Rosemary, the owner of Rhydd Barn, took on her recent visit. They show plants growing in the small wildflower meadow and cut hay lying in the field below the barn with the Malvern Hills blue in the distance. Rosemary also managed to capture an image of a young pied woodpecker on the fence to the hay field. Click on a photo below to see a larger full version.
Now that Rhydd Barn is open for holiday bookings again we hope you will be reassured that we have spent the last few weeks making the barn as Covid-safe as possible. We have followed the relevant official guidelines — below is a summary of the changes we have made.
Rhydd Barn has introduced recommended protective measures against the spread of COVID-19. We are following the Professional Association of Self-Caterers (PASC) Self-catering COVID-19 Cleaning Guidelines — also recommended by VisitEngland (the former English Tourist Board).
Our cleaner and gardener are implementing the extra precautions needed to eradicate any possible traces of the SARS-CoV-2 virus thus minimising the risk of contracting COVID-19. We are sending extra instructions and terms and conditions to visitors before their stay.
We have a COVID-19 Risk Assessment in place which has been passed on to our staff. Our cleaner is using a comprehensive changeover cleaning checklist. Our rigorous cleaning and disinfecting procedures between each set of guests pays particular attention to sanitising high-touch points such as keys, door handles and light switches.
We have decluttered Rhydd Barn to ensure that there are a minimum of non-essential high contact items — for example we have removed many of the ornaments around the property and the attractive extra cushions on the bed.
We request that you bring your own bed linen and towels with you—if you would like us to provide them then we will have to charge you an extra £10. Please indicate your preference on our booking form.
We have installed a hand sanitising station in the barn by the main entrance door.
Rhydd Barn is applying for the ‘We’re Good To Go’ industry standard mark a self-assessment scheme that has been designed by the four UK tourist organisations. This will be a signal to you, our guests and potential guests, that we have worked hard to follow Government and industry COVID-19 guidelines, that we have a process in place to maintain cleanliness and aid social distancing, and that we have read and implemented the Government’s and Public Health England’s (PHE) COVID-19 guidance.
UPDATE (8 September 2020): We have now obtained the ‘We’re Good to Go’ accreditation. See separate news item: Rhydd Barn is ‘Good to Go‘.
Here are some useful links:
We have been busy maintaining the barn over last few months. Here are some of the things we have done:
We have finally got round to replacing the television in Rhydd Barn with a slightly larger smart television with all the ‘catch-up’ services. The tv is a Panasonic TX-32FS503B.
We are pleased to announce that Rhydd Barn has, yet again, been awarded a Four Star Gold Award rating by VisitEngland (the official tourist board for England).
Here is the summary from the report:
My sister took this photograph recently of sheep grazing in the field below Rhydd Barn.
We receive some lovely ‘thank you’ letters and emails from our visitors. Here, with their permission, is an extract from a recent email:
Dear Rosemary,
Thank you so much for letting us stay in The Barn over Christmas and for returning our tidiness deposit – received today.
[…]
We had a few treats courtesy of Mother Nature. We were visited by a pheasant who peered in through the arched window then minced round and had a further look through the door before marching off down the drive. We watched a muntjac deer come through the hedge by the water trough and walk along the cottage side of the hedge munching the grass periodically until he got to the gap at which point he dived through and bounced across the second field to the far hedge. We also saw a barn owl which dropped into the corner of the field immediately the other side of the fence from the arched window! The owl dropped a couple more times into the field before going into the garden of the house at the end of the drive. It was all lovely to see.
Our wonderful gardener has been busy at Rhydd Barn refreshing our flower pots, tubs, and baskets around the barn patio—the cyclamen look good now. And the small flower bed at the entrance to the barn has been tidied up: some unsuitable shrubs were removed in favour of smaller flowering plants (eg small roses from the local nursery in Guarlford) with a backing of slate to keep it tidy. The edging along our entrance drive has been repaired or replaced where necessary so it all looks much neater, giving a positive first impression to our visitors.
During, on our own recent (August 2019) stay in Rhydd Barn, we took the opportunity to add or update some of the items in the Barn.
The current fridge is rather small so we purchased another, second, fridge for the Barn which is located in the pigsty next to the freezer.
We replaced some smaller kitchen items which were worn or not working so well. There is now a new kettle, toaster, omelette pan, tin opener, and a new set of downstairs drinks’ coasters.
We have ordered a small ‘compost caddy’ to place on the kitchen work surface for easier disposal of waste food for organic recycling. We hope to have this in place within a week or so.
We purchased a couple of USB charging plugs and recently replaced the carbon monoxide detectors.
We also now have two plug-in night lights which switch on automatically when it is dark.
Outside we modified the flower bed by the entrance gate to the Barn, replacing some plants and using Malvern stone to make it more like a small rockery.
We are extremely pleased to announce that Rhydd Barn has (again) attained the Four Star Gold Award standard in its annual assessment carried out on 17 April 2019.
Highlights from the assessment are listed on the 2019 Assessment web page of this site. Here is a quote from the summary:
Rhydd Barn continues to offer a high standard of comfortable well maintained accommodation for its market. Mrs Boaz, the Proprietor is very much to be commended on the continued investment and maintaining of standards helping ensure that the high standards continue to be maintained. It is therefore a pleasure to once again reconfirm the Four Star Self catering rating with Gold Award for the coming year reflecting the care and attention afforded by the Proprietor.
A well-deserved award (and reward) for Rosemary (owner of Rhydd Barn, shown below) and her team for all their hard work.
