A lovely Week at Darnhay Cottage in Mauchline Ayrshire Scotland

This post may contain affiliate links and I may receive commission if you visit a link and buy something. Purchasing via an affiliate link doesn’t cost you any extra, and I only recommend products and services I trust.

Over February half term we travelled to see my dad in Scotland and decided to make a holiday of it, booking a self catering holiday nearby so we could explore the area whilst also catching up with him and my grandparents.

My dad lives in the middle of nowhere in Ayrshire and so holidays lets nearby are few and far between. However, I stumbled upon Darnhay Cottages in Mauchline and they ticked all the boxes so we booked straight away.

Darnhay Cottages

Darnhay Cottages is a collection of two holiday cottages with the owners living on site in their own farmhouse. The two cottages are Darnhay Cottage and Darnhay Milk House, both conversions of buildings that were already on the farm. Both of the cottages have similar accomodation and we chose Darnhay Cottage as our home for the week, mainly because it looked slightly more homely and spacious than the milk house.

Staying at Darnhay Cottage

Check in is from 4pm at Darnhay Cottages and we were given a code to retrieve the key whenever we arrived. The Darnhay Cottages postcode took us to another farm along the same road that Darnhay Cottages is on and we just carried on driving along the road until we found our base for the week.

Darnhay Cottages was a lovely sight, with plenty of parking right outside our cottage and views over fields for what felt like miles. It’s fairly remote but with shops within an easy driving distance and it was nice to know that the owners were right next door if we had any issues or needed anything.

Darnhay Cottage has an open plan living area downstairs, with a cosy lounge at one end – complete with wood burner and plenty of games, DVDs and books to borrow along with a TV signed into Sky.

There’s a lovely kitchen which is fully fitted with a washing machine and dishwasher as well as a good size fridge – although there was no freezer, not even a freezer compartment which was a little odd. However, the kitchen was so much better equipped than other places we have stayed at – with basic washing up materials, spare bin bags and even a pizza cutter and tin foil. It was lovely to have a real home from home and there was also a dining area that comfortably sat four people.

The children’s bedroom was downstairs and it was a good size twin room with plenty of storage and a bathroom right next door. Their only small complaint was that the curtains weren’t very thick and so when they woke up it was quite bright in the room. However, the beds were comfortable and they slept really well.

The main bathroom was a good size, complete with a bath and shower cubicle – and throughout the cottage there were plenty of towels for all of us, bath mats where needed and fantastic heated towel rails that dried the towels off almost instantly! There was also at least one toilet roll in each toilet and hand soap throughout the cottage which was really appreciated.

My bedroom was upstairs in the cottage and had slanted ceilings on both sides which might be a problem for taller people. But, the bed was really comfortable and the blind on the velux window kept all the light out, making the room super dark even when it was light outside.

There was also plenty of storage and a compact but really functional en suite shower room. Neither of the showers were very powerful, despite being quite noisy, but they did the job and it wasn’t a problem for the week. One little oddity is that the en suite doesn’t have a door to it, just a fairly see through curtain so if you’re in the bathroom you need to close the bedroom door otherwise anyone in the lounge has a direct view of you in the shower or on the toilet but this was something I quickly got used to.

The cottage had a fantastic heating system which was one of my main worries when staying in Scotland in February and it also had really good wifi throughout – the children’s main concern for our week away! It was so quiet, with hardly any traffic passing by and just such a peaceful place to stay.

The cottages are about a 40 minute drive from Glasgow and 30 minutes from Ayr. Over the course of the week we explored so much of Ayrshire and ventured to Glasgow a couple of times. You can read more about what we got up to – and use it for inspiration – here.

Darnhay Cottage was a fantastic base for our week away and perfectly located just 15 minutes from where my dad lives. It was warm, comfortable and a real home from home. I’d happily stay there again in the future.

You can find out more about Darnhay Cottages over on their website and for reference the address is: Darnhay Farm, Mauchline, Ayrshire KA5 6HG