Lodging on farm between Oxford and Gloucester (Cotswolds)
 

I've heard that there is lodging available on farms in England. I'd welcome recommendations for such lodging in the area between Oxford and Gloucester for family of 3 (two adults, 1 pre-teen). The idea is to stay in one place for several days as we explore Oxford, Bath, Gloucester, Warwick areas (we will have car). I thought my pre-teen would enjoy a farm environment with animals and such-- a different world after we spend a week in London area. Thanks.

Check out:

www.glosfarmhols.co.uk
www.farmstayuk.co.uk

Hi Mary!!!

Here are a two self-catering sites...
English Country Cottages
http://www.english-country-cottages...._homepage.html

and Premier Cottage
http://www.premiercottages.co.uk/index.asp

I have stayed in a few places on the Premier site and will be using them for our next trip as well!!!

just a slight clarification - the self-catering places ginny recommends are for full seven-day rentals usually starting on a Saturday (except in the off season when some short breaks are offered). Self catering cottages are wonderful - but only if you plan on 7 days in one area (or 6 if you're willing to "eat" a paid night).

If you are only talking about 3 to 5 days then the sites Kayb95 mentions are great places to start. There are MANY farm-based B & B's all through the Cotswolds.

A warning and a hint.

If access to animals is important, do check that the farmhouse you're going to is a working farm. Farming isn't too profitable in the Cotswolds, and many "farmhouses" are now ex-farmhouses. Great places to stay, surrounded by fields belonging to another farm (and well-populated with cows and sheep), with lots of hedges and noisy birds and usually run by nice, hospitable people. But not necessarily equipped with immediate access to stables, milking sheds and all the rest. Indeed many have beautiful, well-tended gardens - the infallible sign they're not owned by a working farmer.

To make up for this, you might explore the area's oddest secret. Go to www.multimap.com, and input OX7 5TU. Zoom to the 1:10,000 view. That path you see is a public footpath connecting the side road to Heythrop, a former Palladian mansion turned Jesuit seminary turned country club. The public path goes through the middle of a private zoo. As you walk through the Oxfordshire countryside, you're surrounded on either side by everything from giraffes to llamas to buffalo to the most beautiful, shiny, ring-nosed bull you've ever seen. And no pre-teen we've ever taken there has ever failed to be gobsmacked by it all - especially those who were making it very clear that if they never saw another medieval church or twee tearoom again in their lives, it'd be too soon.

The child might also be interested in the nearby Rollright Stones - a mini-Stonehenge you can actually walk around, whose New Age custodians sell you divining rods which do seem to work.

To navigate to there from better-known places, zoom out on the Multimap site to the 1:100,000 view.

Barton House is an Elizabethan manor house in the Cotswolds near Moreton in Marsh. Don't know if it is still a working farm but it was in the late eighties. Here's a website to look at http://www.europetraditions.com/england/int/48.html