Amenities & Services

The House

We have a three acre garden with swimming lake and pond which guests are welcome to enjoy during their stay. We have no mains services apart from electricity and phone/broadband and all the tap water is pumped from an aquifer in the valley below. Our aim is to be as environmentally conscious as possible and the water is heated by solar panels, we generate electricity from photo-voltaic cells and underfloor heating is provided by air source heat pumps.

In winter the dining room and guest sitting area are warmed by a wood burning fire. There is no mains drainage and guests are reminded to use the bins provided for any unsuitable waste. All of the rain water is harvested for use in the garden with any surplus topping up the lake which is stocked with koi carp.

The guests have sole use of the first floor sitting room with french windows and a glass juliet balcony overlooking the valley and on to the Isle of Wight and Poole Harbour. On a clear day the view extends for some fifty miles with only about five houses visible but sometimes we are literally in the cloud and cannot see beyond the hedge.

breakfast

We offer a breakfast menu to enable you to individualise and vary your breakfast with fresh fruit, cereals, the classic cooked breakfast or kippers, with home made bread and preserves or local honey.

We aim to source locally the food we don’t produce ourselves, with eggs from the village, local sausages and bacon and mushrooms from the Fiddleford mushroom farm, while all the jams, marmalades and preserves are homemade, mostly from fruit from the garden. With a food allergy herself, Claire is well aware of the constraints suffered by many people and is happy to cater for any requirement notified to us at the time of booking, whether you are a vegetarian or prefer spelt, wholemeal or seed bread.

Whenever possible breakfast and dinner can be served on the terrace to enable visitors to make the most of both the weather and the view.

Claire used to run her own catering business in London and, subject to availability, she and John are delighted to get to know our visitors over an en famille evening meal. Locally sourced meat and fish as well as trout and arctic char from the fish farm in the valley below are combined with home-grown organic vegetables to produce delicious modern cooking.

A three-course meal costs £40 per head, including an aperitif, wine with the meal and coffee afterwards and there is always a choice of cheese or dessert but we do need as much notice as possible to ensure availability.