Once upon a time farm stays (or farms-with-rooms) were considered scruffy and uncharted territory for cultured city types. These days, however, thanks to its essence of slow-living and sustainability, it’s the ultimate countryside getaway.
The booming farm-to-fork culture is undoubtedly responsible for this seismic shift – where foodie stays are now graded on their authenticity, more so perhaps than the Egyptian cotton thread count, and where ducks waddling past breakfast tables or lambs bleating in the barns behind a hot tub is the sliver of bucolic life us Londoners came for.
Of course, some of these have slipped too far into gimmick territory, so here are some real farms, with real livestock and real provenance – from London restaurateurs setting up west country boltholes with creative, paddock-led menus to lonely Highland farmhouses-turned-boutique hotels feeding kitchens with home-reared lamb, venison and wonky turnips. Where the food, views and woodland romps elicit RightMove rural fantasy on the slog back to the Big Smoke...
Coombeshead Farm, Cornwall
Any gastronome heading south west will have Coombeshead on their radar: Cornwall’s farm-to-fork trailblazer that marries lofty city chef standards with top-notch rural produce and a slow lane appeal. Chefs and ex-New Yorkers Tom Adams and April Bloomfield (Tom co-founded London’s Pitt Cue Co.) took their culinary nous to a dairy farm on the green fringes of Launceston (think acres of Hebridean sheep-grazed meadows, oak-lined streams and pretty woodland). A made-from-scratch philosophy led from the get-go, with an on-site bakery, rustic-but-ravishing dishes (Red Devon beef with creamed kale and nettle; Mangalitza terrine & piccalilli) from the surrounding veg patches and fields, and reverential design that respects and references its dairy farm origins. Rooms are criss-crossed by light-timber beams and decorated with agri-cool vases of dried wheat, cosy sitting rooms are adorned with flea market trinkets and warmed by the glow of fisherman lamps. But previous guests, however, know it’s all about the farm’s house-churned butter lathered onto its own sourdough with orchard jam.Doubles from £200 per night, coombesheadfarm.co.uk
Glebe House, Devon
An old parsonage folded into East Devon’s smooth, undulating pastures green, Glebe House has an immediate rural romanticism to it. The car door opens into a different dimension of birdsong and the shoulder-lowering rustle of oak leaves. Husband and wife team, Hugo and Olive Guest, have combined their culinary and artistic muscle to resurrect their family’s B&B with a considered eclecticism inspired by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Charleston in East Sussex. Alongside the loud prints, velvets and floral headboards, is a superb, easy-going restaurant where Hugo brings his cheffing talents and the farm’s seasonal bounty to the table. In Italian agriturismo style, with an on-site bakery and charcuterie room (expect plates such as dulce brioche with brown crab to tagliarini with monkfish ragu, sealed with a sweet Earl Grey chocolate truffle). The fixed, four-course dinner menus run from Thursday to Saturday, or there’s Saturday’s antipasti-pasta-pudding lunch then a laid-back Sunday lunch, with all the fresh jersey curd and pancetta trimmings.
Doubles from £45 per night, glebehousedevon.co.uk
Monachyle Mhor, Perthshire
For a lochside lunch, rustled together from the spoils of a 2,000 acre farm at the foot of the Highlands, head above the border to Monachyle Mhor. Blush-pink farmhouse and courtyard rooms, cabins, wagons and treehouses have been decked in that distinct Scandi-Scot minimalism – one that still delivers on the log-fire comfort and sheep rug cosiness on cooler evenings. It all began in the ‘90s when chef Tom Lewis brought his cooking skills home, to his family’s estate in the melancholic and magnificent Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. In prophetic fashion, he opened a farm-to-fork restaurant – its pantry was the surrounding fields dotted with deer and livestock, two glassy lochs brimming with fish, and vegetable patches galore (think Monachyle Blackface lamb with wild garlic and artichoke; Tamworth pork belly with chicory and barley). Then, with the farm’s thrillingly isolated location (wild Scotland at its cinematic best), he added some rooms. The land may still be farmed here but the rustic, flagstone-and-flax linen aesthetic most farm stays angle for is eschewed for an affirmatively Nordic genre – one worth leaving hibernation for with impossibly homemade soft bircher muesli and the bells-and-whistles (and haggis) Scottish breakfast.
Farmhouse doubles from £280 per night, monachylemhor.net
Tillingham, East Sussex
Tillingham’s 70-acre farm dates back to Medieval England, its fields still grazed by cattle and protected by ancient woodland, though these pastures are now combed by a series of hand-planted vines which form one of the South East’s most beloved wineries. Turn down the volume on the Roberts Radios in the rooms (carved into a former hop barn with woven, organic-forward fabrics) and you’ll hear the pigs snuffling just outside. Or peel back the curtains to a family of ducks pattering past for their morning dip. Ex-Silo and The Conduit Club Brendan Eades’ shake up of the kitchen sees a puritanical approach to seasonality (one the city chefs can only dream of) with the Garden Menu mining the organic treasure from the relatively new walled garden. Should the urban itch ever strike? 11th-century Rye, with its cobbled lanes, hipster coffee roasters and East London escapees, is only five miles away.
Doubles from £170 per night, tillingham.com
River Cottage, Devon
Sweeping views from River Cottage HQ’s 17th-century longhouse over the emerald Axe Valley are as staggering as the organic menus here. Not far from the Dorset border and deep in the west country’s agricultural thickets, this was the farm that caught the imaginations of viewers on its long-standing Channel 4 series, where Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall takes the audience through the trials and tribulations of everyday farming life, as well as how to whip up his home-grown veg, diary and farm-reared meat into delicious, seasonal dishes. The brief here is to, simply, disconnect. To swap doomFsheo-scrolling for brisk country walks and cooking courses. Guests staying in the pared down and gently pastoral rooms can wander as freely as the free-range hens to the farm, seeing first-hand how the steaks on their plates are reared and how the vegetable patches are tended. A day’s ‘experience’ can involve baking your own loaf in the bread oven, curinFg meat and rounding off the bucolic expedition with a radically seasonal and sustainable feast – pure foodie fantasy, from the cardoon bruschetta with honey and thyme to the ale-braised ox cheek with parsnips, all washed down with west country ale. Check the website for various seasonal feasts and cooking courses.
Doubles from £150 per night, rivercottage.net
Kingshill Farmhouse, Kent
Once fully ensconced at Kingshill Farmhouse, gazing out over the wetlands festooned with butterflies, wildfowl and roaming cows, it’s hard to believe that you’re only an hour or so from London. Spanning 3,000 acres of unspoilt wilderness on the Isle of Sheppey, the Elmley Reserve is a masterclass in conservationism and sustainable farming, courtesy of Philip and Corinne Merrick’s stellar work and the continued efforts of their daughter, Georgina and her husband Gareth Fulton. Those embarking on guided wildlife walks through the woods and marshes can hole up in one of the secluded shepherd’s huts or cult log cabins, some with outdoor roll top baths, firepits and blonde wood hot tubs. Or, they can bag a more spacious room in the Kingshill Farmhouse, whose botanical wallpaper reflects the natural splendour outside, and whose communal spaces blend industrial design with the rural basics (the farmhouse table and bucolic views). Aside from the rich variety of wildlife that thrives in these protected, soggy stretches, a key highlight of an Elmley stay is the organic, seasonal grub. Expect warm focaccia with smoked butter, plaice with foraged sea vegetables and capers, and poached rhubarb almond crumble – not to mention the farmhouse baked eggs with truffle mushrooms for breakfast the following morning. Exquisite.
Kingshill Farmhouse stays from £140 per night, huts from £95 per night, elmleynaturereserve.co.uk
