A Weekend Glamping with Featherdown Farms

We arrived at our Featherdown Farm canvas hideaway in Layer Marney, Essex, in the rain.  The older two children were sceptical, the younger ones unsure.  We played some games, ate dinner and eventually settled for the night in the (incredibly) comfy beds. The next morning I was prepared for cries of 'I'm bored' and 'there is nothing to do', and I definitely heard those from the tweens who are used to technology and activities all the time. I knew I needed to keep going though so I offered suggestions and let them work it out. 

It didn't take long at all until things changed. Before long their fingernails had turned brown, their hair looked like they had been climbing through hedges and the light of the campfire danced in their eyes. I had looked at what was around locally but that list went unused, we had everything we needed on site.  It was such a wonderful opportunity to do very little, but in the best way.  I don't know how long I have got before my elder ones take too long to revert to this childhood wildness so it felt like a really special chance to spent this time with them.  It was a detox from technology and modern life and a connection with nature that we all needed more than I knew.

We stayed at the Tudor site Layer Marney which is a small site with six canvas hideaways (named after the six wives of Henry VIII).  In the mornings we met the farmer at 8am to change the goats hay, feed the sheep and collect the chicken eggs and the children all loved getting stuck in with this.  For the rest of the day we alternated between cooking outside of our canvas hideaway, playing table tennis by the wood stores, going to the playground and back to see the animals and sitting around the fires.  The children were convinced their food tasted better after being cooked outdoors - even more so as the eggs came from the chickens on the farm.  They loved watching the fires, collecting more logs and of course roasting marshmallows over them.  They played together, they made friends with the children staying in the other canvas hideaways and they were wonderfully wild for the duration of our stay.

Our trip had been timed to coordinate with the Tudor Fayre being held at Layer Marney tower on the Sunday and there was a pass for the tower in our guidebook for everyone to use. The fayre was fantastic, with so many people dressed up demonstrating Tudor crafts and skills like weaving and arrow making.  There was live music, lots of games for the children to try out and birds of prey to admire.  All the children played 'the game with no name' with a Tudor man and raced wooden horses. I was delighted to see how reasonably priced the gift shop was as we love to bring home a souvenir and they enjoyed choosing something each.

Our canvas hideaway was a great size for the six of us (Due to work commitments it was just the five children and I).  It is divided into three rooms, one with a double bed, one with bunk beds and then the cupboard bed which was a brilliant den in the day if they wanted to chill out.  All of the beds had incredibly comfortable mattresses and warm duvets provided.  As we had booked with a baby we had a cot set up in my room too.  We had a toilet in our canvas hideaway and running water in the kitchen area, a table with enough chairs for us all, a sofa and a log burner in the middle of the room which we used to warm the hideaway and to boil the kettle.  Outside we had a private hot shower, a fire pit and a wood stove which we cooked on.  The hideaways were well spaced out so we had lots of privacy.

We arrived home late on Sunday evening smelling strongly of smoke with a bin bag full of dirty clothes, dirty fingernails and with a sense of contentment from a weekend well spent.  There are Featherdown Farms all over the UK with availability for this summer (and dates released for next summer too). I thought this would be the ideal getaway for my animal loving seven year old but it was exactly what my tweens needed too. Rex at 20 months was just delighted by the freedom and space as well and we definitely plan to visit again in the future.