Best holiday cottage companies in the UK

More than a third of people who took a cottage holiday in the past two years reported that they experienced problems, according to our survey. These ranged from leaks and a lack of hot water to poor cleanliness and patchy wi-fi. This is why booking with a firm that provides great customer service is crucial. 

The top two providers in our holiday cottage survey – The Landmark Trust (90%) and Rural Retreats (88%) – scored five stars for communication, customer service and accommodation quality. Your experience, therefore, should be top-notch. But if anything is wrong, staff will quickly rectify the issue.

With hundreds rather than thousands of properties across the UK, these brands offer a personal touch that impressed our survey of more than 4,000 holidaymakers. This attentiveness comes at a price, however. Four of the five top-rated providers were among the most expensive at £57 to £63 per person per night, according to recent guests.

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Holiday cottage companies: the best and worst

Best holiday cottage company: The Landmark Trust

• Customer score: 90%
• Which? Recommended Provider
• Indicative price: £57 per person per night

Want to truly get away from it all? The Landmark Trust is ideal as it has no wi-fi or TVs in its properties. One customer remarked that this pared-back approach meant they could spend more time ‘chatting, reading and playing games’. You can enjoy these low-key activities in stunning surroundings, too, as it thoughtfully restores at-risk historic properties. For instance, stay in Suffolk in one of a chain of towers built to protect from invasion by Napoleon. Or hunker down in Staffordshire in a disused railway station. This quirkiness adds to the excellent experience. It scored five stars in most categories.

Which? verdict:  For a relaxing, historic, off-grid stay, you can’t beat it. 

Book a Landmark Trust cottage

Best luxury cottage holiday provider: Rural Retreats

• Customer score: 88%
• Which? Recommended Provider
• Indicative price: £60 per person per night

Rural Retreats is the joint-second priciest brand in our survey, according to customers, but guests thought it was worth every penny given that it scored four stars for value for money and came second overall. Its countryside properties include barn conversions, manor houses and farm cottages, and according to guests, they are ‘wonderful’ and have ‘top-quality furnishings’. It’s unsurprising, as its listings wouldn’t look out of place in an interior design magazine. And since it clinched the full five stars for how well the property descriptions matched reality, the photography and marketing for each rental are accurate.

Which? verdict: Pricey, but luxurious stays that won’t disappoint.

Book a Rural Retreats stay

Best bargain cottage provider: Toad Hall Cottages

• Customer score: 85%
• Indicative price: £42 per person per night

Toad Hall Cottages is the third-best-rated cottage holiday provider in our survey and is also the cheapest. At £42 per person per night, on average, booking a trip could save you as much as £588 for a week’s stay for four compared to the priciest brand in our survey.

Expect five-star customer service and first-rate communication. One impressed guest said that when roads into Lyme Regis were closed, Toad Hall Cottages not only flagged it but also helpfully suggested alternative routes. However, the quality of its accommodation fell short of that of other providers, scoring just three stars, and its cancellation terms are strict, so it couldn’t be a WRP. Still, since its cottages are based predominantly in the West Country, you might find a deal in usually pricey Cornwall and Dorset.

Which? verdict: Not all of its cottages are perfect, but it’s best for a bargain.

Book with Toad Hall Cottages

Best of the rest: National Trust 

• Customer score: 84%
• Which? Recommended Provider
• Indicative price: £63 per person per night

For more than 70 years, the National Trust has protected hundreds of the UK’s historic buildings - from a 12th-century Norman Hall in the Cotswolds to a 1930s Art Deco villa in Dorset. As a charity, the money it makes from renting the properties enables it to restore 10 more buildings each year.

Like The Landmark Trust, the National Trust offers wonderful, historic stays. But it has a much wider range of properties, more than twice the number of The Landmark Trust. It scored similarly, too, with four and five-star ratings in almost every category.

Which? verdict: Its excellent holiday cottages will cost you, but it uses the money on restoring history rather than lining its pockets

Browse National Trust holiday cottages.

Best cottage holiday provider for stays in the north: Northumbria Coast & Country Cottages

• Customer score: 83%
• Indicative price: £60 per person per night

Although this provider has hundreds of rentals in this unspoiled area of the UK, customers told us that the range of properties it offers is slightly lacking, scoring three stars. But it excelled in essential categories such as the quality of accommodation and cleanliness of its rentals. Customer service is decent (four stars), plus dogs go free. 

Which? verdict: Great for friendly service, local knowledge and well-appointed stays.

Book with Northumbria Coast & Country Cottages

Best cottage holiday provider for stays in the South West: Classic Cottages 

• Customer score: 82%
• Which? Recommended Provider
• Indicative price: £53 per person per night

While Classic Cottages has properties all over the UK, most are in the South West, where the company started. Achieving no less than four stars across all categories, cleanliness and communication are among its strengths, with five-star ratings for both. One customer, who has booked Classic Cottages more than 40 times, said: ‘It’s always been totally reliable and rectified minor issues promptly and efficiently.'

Which? verdict: High-quality cottages and customer service

Find a Classic Cottages holiday

Best cottage holiday provider for stays in Cumbria and the Lake District: Sally’s Cottages

• Customer score: 80%
• Indicative price: £47 per person per night

Sally’s Cottages provides good-quality properties in and around the Lake District. It might be an expensive region, but you should get a deal since Sally’s is the second-cheapest provider in our survey. It scores highly for communication. One customer said that staff offered ‘courteous and personal responses to a query’. However, its range of cottages musters a poor two stars.

Which? verdict: A go-to for bargain pricing in the Lake District

Book with Sally’s Cottages 

Rather go abroad for your self-catering holiday? Look at the best villa and holiday let providers for overseas trips.

Best cottage holiday provider for Scottish stays: Unique Cottages

• Customer score: 80%
• Indicative price: £57 per person per night

Unique Cottages’ entire portfolio is in Scotland. Although this provider didn’t quite meet the requirements for WRP status, it excelled in essential categories from accommodation quality to cleanliness. However, customers told us that its range of properties in this unspoiled area of the UK is slightly lacking. Customer service is decent (four stars).

Which? verdict: Great for insider knowledge alongside fully furnished stays

Book a stay with Unique Cottages

Cottages.com review - should I book?

• Customer score: 74%
• Indicative price: £48 per person per night

Owned by holiday cottage giant Awaze, Cottages.com has more than 22,000 properties to choose from. However, size isn’t everything; its customer score saw it finish below mid-table in our survey results. It landed top marks for cleanliness, and members paid a reasonable £48 per person per night on average for its rentals. However, despite its low prices, it gained three stars for value for money. In our survey, of the 73 people who said they told Cottages.com about issues they experienced with their stay, 29% said they went unresolved.

 Which? verdict: Clean cottages at a low price - but you’ll find more for your money elsewhere

 Search for a cottages.com break

Prefer to stay in a hotel? Check to see which chain hotels in the UK ranked best and worst.

Sykes Holiday Cottages review - should I book?

• Customer score: 73%
• Indicative price: £47 per person per night

With more than 21,000 rentals, Sykes is one of the biggest UK cottage providers. Members tell us Sykes’ rentals are worthy of a five-star rating for quality and paid just £47 per person per night to stay  - one of the cheapest in our survey. However, it came towards the bottom of our survey results. It’s possible that some members felt it didn’t address problems that arose. Of the 145 people who told us they had issues during their stay - and told Sykes about it - more than a third said they went unresolved.

Which? verdict: Quality cottages at a decent price, but at the bottom end of the rankings, it’s clear there are better providers.

Search for Sykes Holiday cottages

How holiday cottage company scores are calculated

Lauren Bell, Which? travel senior researcher/writer says:

Our editorial independence means we work on behalf of consumers, not cottage holiday companies. We're never influenced by companies, nor do we accept free stays at cottages. Instead, we gather the opinions of thousands of Which? Connect panel members about recent cottage stays. To calculate overall customer scores, we ask members if they recommend the company and how satisfied they are with their trip.

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*When we checked prices of the UK’s three biggest cottage providers, Cottages.com, Holidaycottages.co.uk and Sykes, across six months.