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Review 4161: Farnum & Christ, Charlwood Place

Recommended. Review by PowellSharon from OH

4bed/3bath apartment in Pimlico, London

When

June 9 - 16 2009, 8 nights

Location

This house is located in the Pimlico section of London, south of Victoria Station. It is flat which is part of a row of houses on an extremely quiet street. It is a block and a half from the #24 bus line and approximately half way between the Victoria and Pimlico stations of the underground.

Nearby Amenities

The flat is within a five minute walk of a small outdoor market and a grocery store with several restaurants and pubs nearby. There are several bakeries and a cheese store within a few blocks.

The House/Apartment

The house is definitely older but well maintained. It is very quiet and peaceful. The layout is as follows:

Entrance way is a narrow hallway with the dining room off to the left and the kitchen adjacent to the dining room. A few steps down from the entrance level is a full bath and a washer and dryer (typically European very slow).

Up a flight of stairs is a sitting room with a decent sized baby grand piano and an adjacent small entertainment room with a TV.

Up another half flight of stairs is a full bath.

Up another half flight of stairs are three bedrooms, one queen sized and two bedrooms each with a twin bed.

And finally up another full flight of (narrow) stairs is the master bedroom and an adjacent full bath.

The entire house is filled with lots of books on a variety of subjects.

I must admit it was difficult getting suitcases up to the top floor (when we departed, we carried the things to be packed downstairs and then packed them).

Garden

There is a very small outside sitting area which is private.

Furnishings/Cleanliness/Living Areas

The furniture was all quite comfortable and in excellent shape. The house was clean.

Bedrooms/Bathrooms

The master bedroom bed was extremely firm but not uncomfortable. Everyone else slept well so I'm assuming that the rest of the beds were fine. There were plenty of linens and towels.

A few notes on the bathrooms and overall plumbing:

All baths have hand held showers with mounts for the shower aparatus(no traditional American stall shower). The tubs are also very steep with narrow standing room which was difficult for my husband who has balance issues. The master bathroom shower only turns on once a vacuum is created by turning on another spigot in the tub or sink (strange but easily dealt with).

The hot water situation in the house was difficult. While the property owner says it is traditional British plumbing, the reality is that it requires a lot of coordination to ensure that there was sufficient hot water and that one did not introduce air into the system. You can't run the dishwasher and the washer at the same time and given that each of these can easily run for 90 minutes that can be a problem. We were also told to stagger our showers 30 minutes apart.

Kitchen

The kitchen was very nice. There were plenty of pots and pans and dishes. There were two ovens and a slightly smallish refrigerator. We ate breakfast in almost every day and dined in several times.

Agency and Representatives (and price)

The agency was really good to work with. They were prompt at responding by email and called when they had questions or wanted extra communication. I think their web site could have described the property a bit better in terms of layout. We were mailed a set of keys a few weeks before our rental date and returned the extra set of keys in the same way. The security deposit was extremely reasonable.

We never met an on site person but were given plenty of contact numbers in case we needed help.

London is expensive when it comes to rental properties and given that we needed a place with four bedrooms, we were somewhat restricted in what was available. I think the price was reasonable, all things considered. It is billed in British pounds and converted on the day of invoicing. We were also allowed to pay earlier which proved very advantageous given that the exchange rate was moving in the wrong direction.

Do you recommend this vacation rental to others?

I think if people understand the restrictions of the flat (number of floors and plumbing) and can live with them I would recommend this house. The location was really nice and exceptionally quiet for London. The neighborhood was not touristy and we could feel like locals when we went to the local market and shops. The house was quite comfortable and spacious.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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