Little Grans Cottage

This Grade II listed cottage is built from stone with oak beams and mullioned windows, sitting on a working farm in the hamlet of Ickornshaw near the Yorkshire-Lancashire border. The building has real character—exposed walls, a wood burner, and the kind of traditional details that come from genuine age rather than decoration. The cottage is semi-detached; you get the whole place to yourself, with two bedrooms (one kingsize, one with two singles) and a bathroom upstairs, and a living and dining room with a 40-inch TV, kitchen, and separate toilet on the ground floor.

The kitchen has a range cooker, dishwasher and washer-dryer, so you can actually cook and manage laundry without fuss. Essentials like heating, electricity, bed linen, towels and wi-fi are covered; logs for the wood burner are included to start with. There's parking for four cars on site, a lawned garden with seating and a barbecue (shared with the owner), and a bike store. No smoking indoors. The location suits people who like walking—the Pennine Way runs past the farm—and the area has genuine history: Cowling village is a short walk away, Lothersdale nearby was connected to Charlotte Brontë, and Haworth with its Brontë museum and steam railway is 20 minutes off. Skipton market town is also 20 minutes away. A pub and shop are half a mile down the road.

One practical note: the garden includes an unfenced pond about 22 yards from the house, with some drops in the ground, so this matters if you're bringing young children.