Our Stay at Coombe Mill

We had a lovely holiday recently at Coombe Mill in Cornwall. Regular readers will have seen that I’ve already shared the story of us seeing a lamb being born there, and our fun on the daily feed run, so check those posts out, too, for the complete picture.

Right, I’ll start by sharing the accommodation we had. We were in one of the Scandinavian lodges, Pencarrow. It’s the lodge right at the end of the row of holiday homes, so it meant we were also right next to a brilliant play area that the children loved.

It was bright and spacious inside, with a fully equipped kitchen, big family area, huge master bedroom with en suite, 3 further bedrooms downstairs and a family bathroom, and it came with 2 overflowing baskets of toys – the children were very fond of that part!

Handily, there was a washing machine and dryer in there. I don’t tend to do washing when we go away, but farms can get pretty muddy! So this was a really welcome addition, as was the dishwasher – no-one wants to wash up on holiday!

I was surprised by how warm the lodge was, actually. There was night storage heating and then separate electric heaters in each bedroom and the living area. This was all enough to keep us warm and snuggly there in March, though there’s also a log burner that you can use for £15 for the week, if it’s really cold out. It was all immaculately clean on our arrival, and it was nice to see little family-friendly touches like plastic kids plates, bowls and cutlery in the kitchen, too.

The farm itself was beautiful. The feed run was fab and there was also a little train that runs of an evening, as long as it’s dry (we didn’t get to that as on the days we were around at the right time, it was wet!). There were also other play areas dotted around the land, along with an indoor play area, with soft play and trampolines, that the kids got stuck into within hours of being there! It was lovely to just roam around exploring, trample through the woods and visit the animals.

It is located in the midst of country, windy lanes, and as is typical of Cornwall, all steep hills. All adds to the charm, and ensures total peace. As town-dwellers, we were struck by how very dark it is there at night-time, no street lighting or traffic noise at all!

The kids were delighting in waking at around 5.30-6 every day (we were coming up to daylight saving weekend, so I’m blaming that, along with holiday excitability!), so we had full days to explore, after doing the feed run most mornings. We went to the Eden Project, the beach at Polzeath which was beautiful and you can park right on it, National Trust’s Lanhydrock, and lots of towns and harbours, such as Fowey (we ate at Sams, as recommended to me by Fiona at Coombe Mill – yummy!), Truro, Looe, St Ives and Padstow…

I’d like to tell you that all of these adventures and fresh air exhausted the kids, but no, Boo remained as full of energy as normal, and Little Man recharged with plenty of naps in the car between our destinations. I ate a fair few fish and chips meals, and whenever there was an opportunity for a cream tea with clotted cream, I took it!

But before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head home. On the way back, to break the journey up, we stopped off at National Trust’s Killerton, which is just off the M5 in Exeter. Very pretty and a much nicer place to lunch and stretch our legs than a service station!

All in all, a lovely week away, and one that went way too fast!

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