Frequently asked questions

The cottages each have two bedrooms, can more than two people stay?/ Why don’t you accept booking for parties including children?

The cottages share a site with our home. We aim to create a quiet, peaceful, uncrowded experience for everyone, for this reason we limit the guests per cottage to two adults. The cottages and site are unsuitable for children below the age of 16.

Can we have guests to stay during our visit?

Each cottage is set up and equipped for two people, under exceptional circumstances and by prior agreement you can have a guest to stay for 1-2 nights. Please contact us in advance to discuss this. An extra linen and cleaning cost will apply.

How close are the nearest shops?

  • Local, independent Quoyloo Stores is 2 miles from the cottage and stocks many Orkney products.

  • There’s a small Coop and butcher in Dounby which is 3.5 miles from the cottage.

  • Bayleaf Deli is 6.5 miles away in Stromness, along with a Coop and Argos Bakery.

  • Brilliant independent food shops - Shearers, The Brig, Kirkness & Gorie and Jolly’s - in Kirkwall which is 17 miles away, along with Tesco, Lidl and Coop.

What is your COVID cancellation policy?

If local or national COVID travel restrictions prevent travels guests can move their booking forward to a future date with no loss of deposit or any balance payment made.

What precautions are you taking to ensure your cottages are COVID safe?

We are doing enhanced cleaning between guest stays using disinfectants for use against COVID. We are ventilating the cottages before and during cleaning, when possible.

Are there pubs and restaurants in walking distance of the cottages?

We’re in a rural location and there are no pubs or restaurants within walking distance of the house. There is a pub which serves food in Dounby (3.5 miles away) and several pubs and restaurants in Stromness (6.5 miles away) including the Ferry Inn, The Royal, The Stromness Hotel and the Pier Bistro and Takeaway.


Have you got Wi-Fi?

We’ve got rural, Scottish Wi-Fi! In practice this means maximum download speeds of around 8mbps and upload speeds of around 0.1 mbps. It’s good enough for searching the internet and answering emails but probably not fast enough or reliable enough for streaming content.