A Somerset Bed and Breakfast
Welcome to our family home at Valley View Farm !
Like many wonderful things in life, the story of how the farm came about for us, is wrapped up in a love story. You see, this is second time around for both of us; me from Michigan in the great MidWest of America and Mart, born and bred a dairy farmer from Westonbirt, in Gloucestershire, England. It was most challenging choosing were to unpack and call home. However, after considerable travails with the British Home Office and enormous help from a great friend, we as newly marrieds stumbled into the exquisite Somerset village of Batcombe, lost in the rolling hills of the south Mendips.
Immediately hooked on its idyllic location and fabulous secluded aspect, Valley View Farm, with its thirty acres of pastures and meadows, became not only home with considerable demands due to its lamentable state, but also a dedicated project of notable proportions with the potential we see. So please be aware and understand that our home will be a work-in-progress for some time to come; at least each time you come to stay you will be able to study the improvements while always welcomed by our very friendly and gentle natured Jack Russells and !
Not a regular bed and breakfast per se, since it is our family home, it is much likened to an Alistair Sawday refuge. With the space and rooms, the family having flown, we therefore welcome the traveller to come and stay, and always delight in hearing others’ story. Well-behaved children and well-behaved dogs for some reason usually get a better reception than well-behaved grown-ups; must be the air.
Valley View Farm Bed and Breakfast often hosts great wedding weekends and family reunions, Somerset walking and Garden tours, a stopover from London on the way to Cornwall, solo traveller or friends antiquing at The Bath and West Showgrounds, we promise a comfortable stay with beautiful countryside charm.
There are three bedrooms generally, of two doubles each with their own bathroom, and a twin (two single beds) with the sole use of the family bathroom five paces down the passage, plus a fourth family bedroom in the summer (see availability) of both a double and a single bed that then shares the family bathroom. The price is always per room and includes an extensive continental breakfast and ample parking. Depending on which room, extra bedding is always available for most ages ranging from a cot to a very comfortable airbed.
Call or email anytime, we look forward to hearing from you. +44 1749 850 943 ; mc@horsford.net
Valley View Farm Bed and Breakfast also has electric car charging !
The Story so far:
The buildings of Valley View Farm are a combination of new and old, part of which have become a source of pride and warm memories to several of our neighbours and visitors. Great effort is being taken to repair maintain and improve the dilapidated structures and the grounds they sit within having been neglected if not poorly constructed originally.
Our objective is substantially to enhance the character of the farmhouse and its outbuildings, by upgrading its appearance, layout, infrastructure, energy efficiency and finishes. All this equitable to its purpose and natural surroundings, where visitors can relax in sumptuous comfort, and relate that here lives someone who is exciting to know !
Family and friends frequently escape the smoke for a getaway, or use us for a reunion or celebration gathering, or simply wish to explore all that Somerset has to offer, as they quickly realise how much is on offer hereabouts. So our wish is that you, your family and your friends too, come and enjoy this little enclave of what we call home.
The location: Somerset
Reached over ancient bridges along Arcadian lanes Batcombe eventually appears, nestled in the tight cleavage of its protective hills. Stone cottages abound with stone tiled, Welsh slate or thatched roofs, resulting in most of the village rightly long designated a Conservation Area, with several buildings listed to reflect their individual importance, doubtless the foundations of several stretching back to the Doomsday Book.
Hidden, some way off the beaten track literally, Batcombe is a tiny and intense microcosm; its disproportionately large church, a testament to the village’s wealth gained through prodigious wool productivity in the Middle Ages, remains in the centre of the village. Unlike so many English villages stricken with the Black Death, that then rebuilt their settlement some distance away from the churchyard, Batcombe escaped the ravages of the plague; one might presume a rota of watchmen armed with pitch forks kept the errant or curious away.
But it’s the villagers, the people, Batcombe’s inhabitants that really makes this hidden enclave special and worth preserving as a microcosm of a bygone age. Always the time for a chat, buying the daily quart at the Milk Station, out walking the dogs, getting help with directions, collecting free veg put out on a table, news of the next event in the Jubilee Hall, an invitation to dinner, or did you see that sunset ? This is why we now call Batcombe home … come check it out.