Rock Cove
Cove, Loch Long, Argyll
Osgoodby Cottage is a handsome stone country house beneath Sutton Bank that sleeps ten, with The Hideaway alongside for two more, and it has two things most large holiday homes in North Yorkshire can’t offer: its own indoor heated pool, and a view across the Vale of Mowbray and the Vale of York to the Dales. Add a sauna, a hot tub and a fire in the lounge, and you have a house that is just as good in January as it is in July.
You arrive up a tree-lined lane, through iron gates and into a courtyard of honey-coloured stone and red pantile roofs, with clipped topiary standing to attention by the porch as if it had been told you were coming. Inside and out, this is classic English country house style, finished with real care and a refreshing lack of fuss. One recent guest, who came with three generations of the family, reported that the house is “even better than the photos suggest”. Having seen the photos, that is quite a claim.
Inside, it’s oak beams the colour of toffee, warm oak floors, and the kind of deep, forgiving sofas that are very hard to leave. The cushions are tartan and paisley, of which I can only approve. The bay-windowed lounge, with its wood burner and a view over the fields, is where the evenings will gather. There’s a second sitting room and a study for when the group splits up, and then there’s the snug, which is the one I’d opt for: a vaulted white ceiling, doors straight out onto the sun deck, and just far enough from the kitchen to avoid being asked to help.
The kitchen is a handsome cream Shaker affair with black granite and a proper range. Its round oak island will become the group’s unofficial headquarters by about four o’clock on the first day. Next door, a beamed dining room has a long oak table for the full party, and the full party will be needed to do justice to whatever comes out of that range.
Upstairs is where the house really shines. The master suite sits beneath great oak trusses, with its own dressing room and Juliet balcony. If I were allocating rooms, and somebody always has to, I’d quietly keep bedroom two for myself: a leather sleigh bed and French doors onto a private balcony, where a roll-top bath sits in the open air facing the Vale. Settle who gets it before you set off; it will save a great deal of diplomacy later. The bathrooms are a quiet triumph throughout: marble walk-in showers, freestanding baths beneath roof lights, and one presided over by a gloriously eccentric driftwood mirror. A couple of the bedrooms are dressed in storybook wallpaper for the younger contingent.
The pool deserves a paragraph of its own, so here it is. It runs the length of a light-filled wing of pale stone and roof lanterns, heated and open around the clock all year, with a cedar sauna alongside and glass doors that fold right back onto the lawn on warm days. Early risers will have it to themselves. The teenagers will have it at midnight. Everyone in between will wonder why more houses don’t have one.
Outside, the hot tub sits on the patio, ready for a long soak under the stars once the day’s walking is done, and a broad sun deck looks straight out across the Vale for sundowners. The round stone summer house is oak-framed and hung with a cartwheel chandelier, with its own dining table, so long suppers outside work in spring and autumn as well as high summer. Add lavender terraces, a stone outdoor kitchen, a play area and a stone-floored boot room for the muddy return, and you have a house that has plainly thought about how groups actually live.
Across the courtyard, through a stone archway, sits The Hideaway, a self-contained cottage for two that can be booked alongside the main house to bring the party to twelve. It has its own front door, an open-plan kitchen and dining space, and a beamed loft lounge with a wood burner. The bedroom sits under the roofline with skylights over the bed, and the bathroom has a freestanding bath with a countryside view. It’s ideal for the couple who would like to join in all day and close their own door at night, and I suspect it will be the most quietly envied booking of the week.
The Yorkshire Gliding Club has been launching from the top of Sutton Bank since 1934, and a first flight with an instructor is one of the great North Yorkshire experiences: silent, soaring, with the Kilburn White Horse laid out below you. Check flying conditions with the club that morning. Send the bravest up first; the rest can watch from the escarpment with a coffee and an opinion.
For a celebration, Thirsk Racecourse runs flat racing from April to September. A private box for parties of eight upwards, with your own balcony and bar, is a splendid way to mark a big birthday and a reasonably dignified way to lose a tenner.
When nobody can face the range, The Carpenters Arms at Felixkirk has a private dining room for up to twenty, so the whole party sits at one table and nobody washes up. For something more relaxed, the Forresters Arms in Kilburn is furnished with oak from Robert Thompson’s “Mouseman” workshop along the street. Children can be sent to count the carved mice, which buys roughly the time it takes to order. Ring ahead for a table of ten or more.
Osgoodby is booked directly with the owners, and that has its advantages. Nothing here is off the shelf: tell them what you’re celebrating, who’s coming and what you’ll need, whether that’s cots, room for a dog or two or a few extra nights, and they’ll do their level best to make it work. They usually reply the same day, which is rather rarer than it ought to be.
For a milestone birthday, a family reunion or a group of friends who have earned a proper week off, Osgoodby is the real thing: handsome, generous and beautifully kept, with a pool to fill the mornings and a view to fill the evenings, whatever the season. That same three-generation family called their week “one of the best”, and it’s easy to see why.
Sleeps 10 in five bedrooms, or 12 with The Hideaway. From £550 per night, minimum stay three nights. Up to two dogs welcome in the main house (The Hideaway is dog-free). Cots available. Booked by enquiry, direct with the owners.
