Sykes Cottages Scraper

What does Sykes Cottages Scraper do?

Sykes Cottages Scraper collects UK self-catering holiday cottage listings from Sykes Holiday Cottages and returns them as clean, structured data. Open a location or theme page on the Sykes website (for example "Lake District cottages" or "cottages with hot tubs"), paste the URL, press Start, and download a dataset with the cottage name, region and locality, map coordinates, guest capacity, bedrooms and bathrooms, bed configuration, pet policy, Sykes rating, weekly price from, check-in and check-out times, amenities, full description, and photos. Use it for holiday-let market analysis, competitor and pricing research, availability tracking, and building cottage comparison tools.

Why use Sykes Cottages Scraper?

• Whole regions in one run – point it at a county or national-park landing page and it walks the results pages for you.
• Detailed per-cottage data – 20+ fields combining the results card with everything on the cottage page.
• Location and mapping ready – region, locality, postcode area, latitude, and longitude for every cottage.
• Sleeping details – guest capacity, bedroom and bathroom counts, and the bed configuration (bed types and quantities).
• Clean, normalised output – numbers as numbers, null for missing values, deduplicated by cottage.
• Automation ready – schedule runs and connect results to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, or your own API.

What makes this different?

Most holiday-cottage data floating around is scraped from rendered page text and misses the structured detail. This Actor reads the cottage's own published property model, so guest capacity, bathroom count, bed-by-bed sleeping arrangements, check-in/out times, and coordinates come through consistently. It drives a real browser through a UK residential proxy, so listing pages load exactly as they do for a visitor and region searches paginate to full depth.

What data can you extract?

Field	Description
url	Cottage page URL
id	Sykes property ID
name	Cottage name
propertyType	Sykes property classification, when published
region	Region or area, e.g. "Cornwall", "Cumbria & The Lake District"
locality	Town, village, or nearest settlement
postcodeArea	Outward postcode, e.g. "CA20" (from the results card)
latitude / longitude	Map coordinates
sleeps	Maximum number of guests
bedrooms / bathrooms	Room counts
rooms	Total number of rooms, when published
beds	Bed configuration: list of { count, type }, e.g. King Size Bed × 1
petsAllowed	Whether pets are accepted
sykesRating	Sykes rating, 1–5 (from the results card)
weeklyPriceFrom	Indicative "from" price for a 7-night stay (from the results card)
priceCurrency	Currency code, GBP
checkinTime / checkoutTime	Arrival and departure times
amenities	List of amenities, e.g. wifi, fireplace, hotTub, parkingType: Off Road Parking
description	Full cottage description
images	Photo URLs
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp of collection

weeklyPriceFrom, sykesRating, and postcodeArea come from the results card, so they are present when a cottage is reached through a location or theme page and null when a single cottage URL is scraped directly. Coordinates, bathrooms, bed configuration, check-in/out times, the full amenity list, and the full description need Open each cottage page for full details switched on.

How to use Sykes Cottages Scraper

1. Open the Actor.
2. On sykescottages.co.uk, open a location page (for example "Lake District cottages") or a theme page (for example "cottages with hot tubs"). Copy the URL from your browser.
3. Paste it into Start URLs. Add more URLs to combine several areas or themes.
4. Set Max cottages per start URL and choose whether to open each cottage page.
5. Press Start.
6. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML, or use the API.

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
startUrls	Array	Yes	Lake District cottages	Sykes location or theme landing pages, or individual cottage page URLs.
maxItems	Integer	No	20	Maximum cottages to collect per start URL. Ignored for single cottage URLs (always one row each).
scrapeDetails	Boolean	No	true	Open each cottage page for coordinates, bathrooms, bed configuration, amenities, and description.
useCache	Boolean	No	false	Reuse cottage details collected in an earlier run to speed up recurring runs.
proxyConfiguration	Object	No	UK residential proxy	Proxy settings. Sykes blocks datacenter traffic, so a UK residential proxy is used by default.

Output Data

Each dataset item is one holiday cottage. Example (trimmed):

{
    "url": "https://www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/Lake-District-Cumbria-The-Lake-District-Nether-Wasdale/Stable-End-Cottage-931410.html",
    "id": "931410",
    "name": "Stable End Cottage",
    "propertyType": "HolidayVillageRental",
    "region": "Cumbria & The Lake District",
    "locality": "Nether Wasdale near Gosforth",
    "postcodeArea": "CA20",
    "latitude": 54.425629,
    "longitude": -3.32707,
    "sleeps": 6,
    "bedrooms": 3,
    "bathrooms": 2,
    "rooms": 8,
    "petsAllowed": false,
    "sykesRating": 4,
    "weeklyPriceFrom": 515,
    "priceCurrency": "GBP",
    "checkinTime": "17:30",
    "checkoutTime": "10:00",
    "amenities": ["fireplace", "patio", "wifi", "heating", "parkingType: Off Road Parking", "internetType: WiFi"],
    "beds": [
        { "count": 1, "type": "4' Double Bed" },
        { "count": 1, "type": "King Size Bed" },
        { "count": 2, "type": "Single Bed" }
    ],
    "description": "A charming, semi-detached cottage next to the owner's Grade II listed farm in the village of Nether Wasdale in the Lake District National Park...",
    "images": [
        "https://images-cdn.sykesassets.co.uk/images/property_images/750x562/931410/sc_1609942914_931410_40.jpeg"
    ],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-01T08:51:51.568Z"
}

Usage Examples

All cottages in a national park

• Start URL: a Sykes "Lake District cottages" (or other region) landing page
• maxItems: 500, scrapeDetails: true

Quick price and rating snapshot

• Start URL: a county landing page
• maxItems: 200, scrapeDetails: false

Refresh a shortlist

• Start URLs: several https://www.sykescottages.co.uk/cottage/.../<name>-<id>.html URLs
• scrapeDetails: true

Tips for Best Results

• Use the narrowest landing page that covers what you need – a county or town page is faster and cheaper than a whole-country page.
• Add several start URLs to cover multiple regions or themes in one run; maxItems applies to each separately.
• Keep the default UK residential proxy on – Sykes blocks datacenter IPs.
• For monitoring, schedule the Actor and enable Use cache.

Known Limitations

• A UK residential proxy is required in practice; datacenter IPs are challenged by the site.
• weeklyPriceFrom is the indicative "from" price shown on the results card for a standard 7-night stay, not a live quote for specific dates. It is null when a cottage is scraped from a direct URL.
• sykesRating and postcodeArea are read from the results card and are null for direct cottage URLs.
• Sykes paginates location results to a limited depth. Split large areas into smaller regions or use theme pages for fuller coverage.
• Bed configuration reflects what Sykes publishes and may not list every individual bed.
• Live nightly availability calendars are not collected.

Integrations

Connect results to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, Slack, or your own systems via the Apify API and webhooks. Schedule runs to keep a dataset current.

Export Formats

JSON, CSV, Excel, and XML from the Dataset tab or the Apify API.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many cottages can I get per run? Up to maxItems per start URL, within Sykes's own pagination depth. Use multiple start URLs for wider coverage.

Can I scrape a themed collection like "cottages with hot tubs"? Yes. Any Sykes location or theme landing page works, as do individual cottage URLs.

How are duplicates handled? Cottages are deduplicated by Sykes property ID within a run.

Why are some fields null? Either the field is not published for that cottage, or it is a results-card-only field (weeklyPriceFrom, sykesRating, postcodeArea) and the cottage was scraped from a direct URL.

Do I need a proxy? Yes, in practice. Sykes challenges datacenter traffic, so the Actor defaults to a UK residential proxy.

Can I schedule it? Yes, with Apify Schedules. Combine with Use cache to refresh only what changed.

How fresh is the data? Every run loads live pages from Sykes at run time, unless a cottage is served from your cache.

Support

Found a problem or need an extra field? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab in the Apify Console.

Legal / Responsible Use

You are responsible for how you use this Actor and the data it collects, including compliance with Sykes Holiday Cottages' Terms of Use and applicable laws. Collect only what you need and respect the website's terms. If you collect any personal data you are responsible for complying with applicable data-protection law (for example the UK GDPR).

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