What to Expect if you're Glamping
Working Farm Holidays in the Heart of a Rural Farming Community
We work hard on our website to ensure there's lots of detailed descriptions and photographs to give you an idea of what we're offering. Here are a few things which guests mention to us:
Weather: If Easter comes early it can be cold at night in late March early April if you're staying in a safari tent. If you're worried about the weather you can always book last minute and see what the forecast is. We provide lots of firewood if you're glamping, fleece blankets, hot water bottles and warm duvets. The canvas walls are also clad with wood to provide another layer of insulation and there will be rugs on the wooden floors, The safari tents are tents - made of canvas with wooden structures. There are wooden walls inside the structures for sturdiness and a bit of insulation, but you are sleeping in a tent. If it rains you'll hear it, if it's windy you'll definitely know, but they are safe! April can sometimes be colder than late October but with English weather you never really know what the temperatures will be! Lots of firewood is included with a safari tent booking, and all the safari tents have large Aga style wood burning stoves to heat the space. The cabin and cottage are perfectly warm whatever the weather!
Weather: If Easter comes early it can be cold at night in late March early April if you're staying in a safari tent. If you're worried about the weather you can always book last minute and see what the forecast is. We provide lots of firewood if you're glamping, fleece blankets, hot water bottles and warm duvets. The canvas walls are also clad with wood to provide another layer of insulation and there will be rugs on the wooden floors, The safari tents are tents - made of canvas with wooden structures. There are wooden walls inside the structures for sturdiness and a bit of insulation, but you are sleeping in a tent. If it rains you'll hear it, if it's windy you'll definitely know, but they are safe! April can sometimes be colder than late October but with English weather you never really know what the temperatures will be! Lots of firewood is included with a safari tent booking, and all the safari tents have large Aga style wood burning stoves to heat the space. The cabin and cottage are perfectly warm whatever the weather!
Trees, Hedges and Plants Nesting season is from March to the end of August, we don't cut any shrubs, hedges or trees at this time of year. We have swallows, house martins, buzzards, owls, bats and all kinds of wildlife nesting in the summer months, the farm can look a bit wild in August! The odd mouse or vole might scuttle by, we're careful to keep our animal feed in sealed containers, but if coco pops are sprinkled on a tent deck for example, a mouse will probably find it!
In a good dry summer we'd usually have the long grass in the two glamping fields baled in late July, but if it's a rainy summer it's not possible for the harvesting machines to bale wet grass and it will remain long and swishy, we mow paths through the grass to each safari tent and mow the area immediately in front of each tent and the cabin. There are wild flowers in the glamping fields in May, June and early July, by August they will be seed heads.
Insects/bugs/flies etc love wet summers! If we have an unusually wet summer (like July & August 2023!!), there will probably be flies around the farm. We don't use pesticides on our land so when it's damp and warm they'll happily multiply, and the neighbouring farms are organic too. Flies and insects are part of the wildlife on the farm and although we appreciate they are annoying they are good for pollination and an important part of the ecosystem. In a normal English summer flies are not really much of an issue, but if we're unlucky to have wet August the insect life will flourish. To manage bugs in a damp summer all our accommodations including the safari lodges have chain metal insect curtains which will keep the majority of insects out, we provide sticky fly papers for catching flies if any come through the chains into your accommodation, and we hang fly traps in the hedges away from the accommodation to attract any pesky bugs in the opposite direction!
Noise, you won't hear road noise or urban sounds when you're staying here as we're a good distance away from any towns. But you will hear the sounds of the countryside, we can't predict what sounds there might be! There are cows and horses next door, sheep on all the farms for miles, all kinds of poultry on neighbouring farms, dogs on most of the farms in the vicinity (and farm dogs sleep outside!), and plenty of farmers on tractors close by, you may also hear wild animals like owls, foxes or pheasants. Dogs will bark if a fox comes by in the night! Weather - rain and wind can also be audible if you're sleeping under canvas - we think the sound of rain on the roof is a part of the experience but it's worth pointing it out as everyone has a different opinion - see weather paragraph above! It's unlikely for us to have a windy storm in the summer months, but not unheard of! Very occasionally on a warm still night, if someone is having a party up to ten miles away the sounds of fireworks or music can travel a distance over the hills to us, it doesn't happen often, maybe once a year, but it does happen sometimes. Most of the time it is pretty quiet here but we cannot predict the sounds of farm animals and nature, that is outside of our control.
In a good dry summer we'd usually have the long grass in the two glamping fields baled in late July, but if it's a rainy summer it's not possible for the harvesting machines to bale wet grass and it will remain long and swishy, we mow paths through the grass to each safari tent and mow the area immediately in front of each tent and the cabin. There are wild flowers in the glamping fields in May, June and early July, by August they will be seed heads.
Insects/bugs/flies etc love wet summers! If we have an unusually wet summer (like July & August 2023!!), there will probably be flies around the farm. We don't use pesticides on our land so when it's damp and warm they'll happily multiply, and the neighbouring farms are organic too. Flies and insects are part of the wildlife on the farm and although we appreciate they are annoying they are good for pollination and an important part of the ecosystem. In a normal English summer flies are not really much of an issue, but if we're unlucky to have wet August the insect life will flourish. To manage bugs in a damp summer all our accommodations including the safari lodges have chain metal insect curtains which will keep the majority of insects out, we provide sticky fly papers for catching flies if any come through the chains into your accommodation, and we hang fly traps in the hedges away from the accommodation to attract any pesky bugs in the opposite direction!
Noise, you won't hear road noise or urban sounds when you're staying here as we're a good distance away from any towns. But you will hear the sounds of the countryside, we can't predict what sounds there might be! There are cows and horses next door, sheep on all the farms for miles, all kinds of poultry on neighbouring farms, dogs on most of the farms in the vicinity (and farm dogs sleep outside!), and plenty of farmers on tractors close by, you may also hear wild animals like owls, foxes or pheasants. Dogs will bark if a fox comes by in the night! Weather - rain and wind can also be audible if you're sleeping under canvas - we think the sound of rain on the roof is a part of the experience but it's worth pointing it out as everyone has a different opinion - see weather paragraph above! It's unlikely for us to have a windy storm in the summer months, but not unheard of! Very occasionally on a warm still night, if someone is having a party up to ten miles away the sounds of fireworks or music can travel a distance over the hills to us, it doesn't happen often, maybe once a year, but it does happen sometimes. Most of the time it is pretty quiet here but we cannot predict the sounds of farm animals and nature, that is outside of our control.
Safari tent views There's a farm map on our website so you can see the layout of the accommodation. Porlock, Bossington and Kilve Lodges have the best views, these safari tents look out towards Exmoor and Willitt Hill and there are usually (not always) alpaca in the field in front of these lodges. Kestrel, Hawk and Buzzard Lodges look across our glamping field towards The Quantock Hills in the distance, there are not any animals in this field, the paddock in front of these three lodges is for guest dogs to run off their leads, and you can see the playground from these lodges, so it's a good choice if you have small children. We have planted lots of new trees in both glamping fields, the majority will be established by 2024.
Animals The animals we have on the farm changes and our animals rotate around our fields, for example in some years we might have 25 pigs, another year we might have just 1, the best way of keeping up with what animals you might see is by following our social media, as we share lot of animal photos on our stories. You'll see on our T&C you can't wander into the animal paddocks any time you wish, our farm tour is the time for seeing our animals up close, the field gates are locked outside farm tour times as our insurance stipulates, although you will see lots of animals over the tops of field fences if you don't want to join our farm tour. We'll explain what we do with our animals and why we have them on the farm tour, and if you eat meat, you can buy zero food mile, grass fed meat directly from us. Lambing is usually late March, we sometimes (not always) have lambs on a bottle, we'd rather they feed from their mothers, but if one is orphaned it'll be bottle fed and you can see this on a farm tour.
We're not similar to a Centre Parcs or Butlins, we offer an authentic, sustainable farm glamping experience in a very rural, unspoilt location, with weather entirely out of our control. The summers of 2022 and 2023 had convincing evidence of climate change and we're doing our small bit to help carbon capture with the environment at the heart of our farm.
Other guests We have two fields of safari tents, 3 lodges in each field. We don't allow pitched tents or camper vans, everyone needs to stay in our accommodation. Groups are welcome to book three lodges together so you have a field to yourselves. We have options where you can all dine together. No pitched tents and camper vans. If you're booked a whole field and have last minute extra guests, get in touch and we can make a few suggestions.
Animals The animals we have on the farm changes and our animals rotate around our fields, for example in some years we might have 25 pigs, another year we might have just 1, the best way of keeping up with what animals you might see is by following our social media, as we share lot of animal photos on our stories. You'll see on our T&C you can't wander into the animal paddocks any time you wish, our farm tour is the time for seeing our animals up close, the field gates are locked outside farm tour times as our insurance stipulates, although you will see lots of animals over the tops of field fences if you don't want to join our farm tour. We'll explain what we do with our animals and why we have them on the farm tour, and if you eat meat, you can buy zero food mile, grass fed meat directly from us. Lambing is usually late March, we sometimes (not always) have lambs on a bottle, we'd rather they feed from their mothers, but if one is orphaned it'll be bottle fed and you can see this on a farm tour.
We're not similar to a Centre Parcs or Butlins, we offer an authentic, sustainable farm glamping experience in a very rural, unspoilt location, with weather entirely out of our control. The summers of 2022 and 2023 had convincing evidence of climate change and we're doing our small bit to help carbon capture with the environment at the heart of our farm.
Other guests We have two fields of safari tents, 3 lodges in each field. We don't allow pitched tents or camper vans, everyone needs to stay in our accommodation. Groups are welcome to book three lodges together so you have a field to yourselves. We have options where you can all dine together. No pitched tents and camper vans. If you're booked a whole field and have last minute extra guests, get in touch and we can make a few suggestions.
