In case you are on the lookout for a completely relaxed rural getaway that simply exudes luxurious and high quality, we have now been fortunate sufficient to find that at Pen Hill, Nottinghamshire.
Little did we all know how a lot the self-catering lodging must provide till we arrived with our little canine Bandit. Nestled in The Vale of Belvoir with spectacular views of unspoilt rural countryside 360 levels, you’ll be able to see three counties, Nottingham, Leicestershire, and Lincolnshire.
We felt as if we may have fairly simply settled into this retreat and simply wound down for the weekend. With the cosy log burner lit, and the central heating on, it felt like a disgrace to go away the lodging in any respect, which in the event you needed to wind down, sit back and benefit from the comforts right here you truthfully wouldn’t want to go away the home in any respect.
Our final day at The Home on the Hill would make an ideal instance of the splendour of this place, it was a Sunday morning while having breakfast and a morning espresso, we appeared out of the window and noticed a few Roe deer wandering previous, completely oblivious to us as they moseyed alongside on the entrance of the property within the morning daylight, they ultimately wandered off into one other area and we watched them till they had been out of sight.
Later, an exquisite hare got here bounding alongside the trail in entrance of the daffodils. What a beautiful begin to Mom’s Day.
Canines Welcome
We had been already acquainted with the world, and we knew there can be loads of canal walks and public footpaths all through the world to discover throughout our keep at Pen Hill self-catering lodging and we made the many of the alternative with our canine, Bandit.
He had an awesome weekend with a number of countryside strolling and snuggling beside the log burner in his mattress through the evenings. Bandit felt fully settled and at house throughout our keep, he went into his mattress whereas indoors and behaved very effectively.
Even after being taken out to the fields for a late night rest room alternative, he would run again to the entrance porch to be let again in and return to his cosy mattress that we positioned in the principle corridor beside the radiator for night-time sleeping.
The Home on the Hill has its personal canine feeding station with water and meals bowls within the kitchen they usually provide a few canine blankets in the lounge in case your canine desires to affix you on the sofa. Our little Bandit was fairly comfortable to snooze in his personal mattress along with his little plush lion toy. Canine sitting could be organized with the homeowners when reserving the lodging at a small additional price.
Night Sundown Stroll
Our first native stroll from the lodging was a sundown stroll throughout a few fields and onto the Grantham canal for some time till we got here to a quiet nation lane that was a brief distance again to The Home on The Hill the place the fairy lights had been lit, glowing gently as we walked again up the driveway.
This was a 5-mile stroll, a straightforward going tempo and solely turning into barely raised as we got here again to the home, it’s located on somewhat hill which supplies it the title and why the views are so spectacular throughout with nothing to spoil it, there are not any different homes in sight for miles giving whole privateness.
The stunning hosts, Jo and Richard dwell within the adjoining property behind the lodging and are very welcoming and useful, they’re accessible for any help or contemporary towels and so on you may want throughout your keep.
The entrance porch is a calming spot to take a seat at any time of the day and due to its enclosed house with home windows it stays sheltered. We might sit and take off our strolling boots right here and depart them below the bench to dry them off on the finish of the day.
Lodging Location
Pen Hill Lodging is ready within the beautiful Vale of Belvoir at Colston Bassett, it’s a tranquil rural location that’s good for getting away from all of it, the property is ready in sixteen acres of grassland, a beautiful base for going for nation walks or biking in the event you get pleasure from lively days out, and the surroundings would make an ideal spot for artists to create stunning artwork in my view.
There are some quaint little villages within the surrounding space which are value visiting too. The nation lanes are straightforward to stroll alongside in case you are connecting canal walks with area footpaths, the grass verges are extensive and walkable not like some locations we have now walked earlier than, so there’s by no means any fear about taking a stroll alongside the lanes till reaching the following footpath.
There are public footpaths straight out the door that connect with an entire community of walks. There are some maps within the info folder on the property so that you can observe a number of completely different paths and variations of lengths of walks.
The tackle for The Home on the Hill is Colston Bassett, in Nottinghamshire, however the full tackle and instructions to search out the lodging might be given when reserving as a result of home being off the principle street, Hose Lane and up a driveway. The postcode is NG12 3UU
The Home on the Hill
Reserving the lodging offers you full entry to the entire home, a two bedroomed property that sleeps 5 adults and an toddler. Bed room one has a king-sized mattress and sofa, chest of drawers and so on, and bed room two is a household sized room with a king-sized mattress, a single mattress and has a cot, there’s a dressing desk and wardrobes too, each rooms are very spacious with completely attractive views throughout the countryside.
I loved the pure mild from the massive home windows, and I may simply have a look at these nation views from the bed room for hours, I might deliver binoculars subsequent time in order that I may determine birds and spot the deer and hares additional throughout the fields.
They supply a wonderful high quality hairdryer which I discovered particularly helpful on our go to.
On the bottom flooring there’s a generously sized kitchen diner with all services, equivalent to a dishwasher, washer with washer tablets and a hob and oven plus a microwave, a kettle and toaster.
There’s a giant fridge freezer within the kitchen which might be helpful for stocking up on your keep, particularly in the event you had been stopping for a full week.
Jo and Richard present a really scrumptious welcome pack which might be set out on the kitchen desk once you arrive, it consists of a tasty house baked loaf of bread, six free vary eggs which are sourced from an area hen keeper. We visited the hens ourselves and acquired a dozen eggs to deliver house on the finish of our keep, they’re comfortable hens certainly.
There may be some scrumptious jam and marmalade from an area producer in Belvoir, Barlows of Belvoir. there may be loads of contemporary milk in a jug within the fridge and a big pat of butter in a butter dish within the fridge.
Olive oil and seasonings can be found within the kitchen cabinet and there’s a wide range of completely different teas, filter espresso and immediate espresso, so we had every little thing we wanted to begin our break while not having to enterprise outdoors.
All the foremost supermarkets will ship to the property if you wish to refill on meals for the remainder of the length on your keep, or you can possibly perform a little store earlier than arriving and convey it with you, the village outlets will not be as effectively stocked and we observed that on a Saturday they shut early, earlier than lunch time.
The massive lounge space incorporates an amazingly snug sofa, a big espresso desk a large selection of household boardgames below it and two leather-based chairs with foot stools.
There’s a very cosy log burner that’s provided with logs and kindling on your keep and extra accessible in the event you ought to want it. There’s a writing desk in the lounge you could work from if you want to proceed working when you are away, the Wi-Fi on the property is robust too in the event you puzzled, so there is no such thing as a drawback connecting with household or colleagues throughout your break.
The T.V has a number of choices accessible from sports activities by to Netflix, Sky TV and a lot extra on. Once more, downstairs the home windows are huge, they usually let in a number of pure mild which I actually loved. We left the curtains open to observe the night time sky because it modified from sundown to starry night. All through the home the ceilings are excessive giving a really spacious feeling.
There’s a downstairs rest room and bathe room provided with full sized high quality bathe gel, shampoo, conditioner, rest room rolls and towels.
Upstairs there may be one other rest room with a bathe and a shower, the lavatory can also be provided with glorious high quality hair and physique merchandise. It was pretty to have a shower accessible, on the Saturday we walked quite a lot of miles within the rain, and typically it’s good to have a soak on the finish of the day.
The massive tub sheets are distinctive high quality, snug and smooth and completely heat once you drape them over the heated towel rack within the rest room earlier than utilizing them.
Households
There are quite a lot of toys and books on the home, there’s something for all ages together with a play kitchen. Plenty of the toys are studying instruments and every little thing is top of the range.
I observed that there’s a child altering mat and wash bowl for infants accessible. It might be a beautiful place to deliver households collectively for some high quality time.
Jo can babysit for you if you wish to exit within the night, and she or he has 35 years’ expertise with pre-school age youngsters and has an enhanced DBS police verify. It’s value noting as a result of I’ve not often seen this accessible, particularly with self-catering holidays.
Heated Out of doors Pool
Throughout the summer time months between June and September the out of doors heated swimming pool is open for as much as 4 hours of uninterrupted private use.
This is likely to be prolonged to chilly water swimming if requested on the time of reserving from round April time, ask when making a reserving.
Personally, I like the thought of the heated out of doors pool in the summertime months, I’m not a fan of cold-water swimming, however loads of persons are braver and extra adventurous than me.
Locations to go to and issues to do
Strolling
Once we got here to remain, we had some walks deliberate and a selection of strolling boots or wellies to select from, we selected to put on strolling boots for our stroll on the Saturday.
We visited the village of Lengthy Clawson first, identified for its scrumptious blue vein cheeses from the Lengthy Clawson dairy, it’s a small quiet village, and we do advocate that you just attempt the native cheese.
Quickly after we walked the general public footpaths to the tiny village of Hose adopted by a stroll alongside the canal tow path in direction of Harby, we got here off the tow path and walked the final mile by street and into the village of Harby the place we dried off in entrance of a log hearth on the Nags Head Inn, Bandit warmed up and fell asleep.
The Nags Head Inn do serve a very good vary of tasty trying meals there and it smelt scrumptious, however we had simply missed the lunch time service. It’s a very heat and pleasant, welcoming pub.
As soon as rested and dried off, we headed again in direction of Colston Bassett alongside the street till reaching the following part of canal and we arrived on the lodging at nightfall, a 12-mile round stroll.
Strolling to Hickling basin and thru the world is someplace I might advocate. For those who stroll from Hickling to Kinoulton that is one other stunning space the place we have now loved household walks alongside the tow path for a few years, there’s a pretty tearoom at Hickling Basin and the Plough Inn beside the canal.
Belvoir Fort
Whereas within the Vale of Belvoir it’s a improbable alternative to make a go to to the sumptuous Belvoir Fort which dates to Norman instances.
The fortress opens on the weekend solely till the 1st of April when it reopens absolutely and the gardens and lake open 11am – 5pm. The youngsters Journey playground space opens each day 9.30am until 5pm.
There’s a pretty buying space referred to as The Engine Yard Purchasing Village with a pleasant number of outlets, every with particular person opening instances.
At The Engine Yard there’s the Gas Tank Café that you will see open 10am – 4pm by Monday to Friday and 9am – 5pm on the weekend.
The postcode for attending to Belvoir Fort is NG32 1PE
St Mary’s Church Colston Bassett
The ruined church is peaceable place to go to, not solely is it of nice historic significance but additionally a peaceful place to admire.
The event of the location spans eight centuries and the very oldest a part of the constructing dates to the Basset household and the Norman King Henry l, it’s the walled in north arcade. I really feel it might be an ideal place to sketch and paint.
The Soiled Duck Pub
The Soiled Duck Pub is walkable from the lodging in the event you like a very good lengthy stroll, 12.9 miles there and the identical milage again.
Stroll alongside the Grantham canal, by way of Harby, Plungar, Redmile and Muston. However in the event you don’t wish to stroll that distance it’s equally good to drive to The Soiled Duck Pub for some stunning walks alongside the canal or the Viking Manner, and a lunch on the pub or tearooms.
The map to do that stroll is obtainable within the info folder at The Home on the Hill.
Different Sights
Pen Hills lodging is shut sufficient to a variety of sights inside a brief driving distance as a result of it borders these three counties giving good entry to a number of locations to discover, to buy or to have adventures. Certainly one of my favorite locations is Wollaton Corridor and Deer Park in Nottingham.
When you’ve got a day to spare in Nottingham, I counsel you to e book tickets for The Metropolis of Caves while you’re there, it’s effectively value a go to and the tickets could be booked by The Nationwide Justice Museum.
The county of Leicestershire has loads of sights to supply too in the event you don’t thoughts somewhat drive to have a enjoyable day trip.
For those who get pleasure from fowl recognizing and nature, a drive to Nottinghamshire Wildlife Belief’s Attenborough Nature Reserve is simply the ticket, I can personally advocate it there, I stroll there frequently. The Attenborough Nature Reserve has a café and customer centre and accessible paths across the lakes and river Trent.
Lincolnshire too has many enjoyable and attention-grabbing sights value visiting in actual fact inside the surrounding areas you can fill greater than per week’s value of enjoyable places to go to. I get pleasure from visiting the gorgeous county of Lincolnshire usually.
Pen Hill Framing
Richard runs a bespoke image framing service from his onsite workshop the place you can too e book a personalised expertise for a morning studying session on framing utilizing a really big selection of supplies.
Additionally, you will be given skilled inside design recommendation on matching your framing supplies to your private décor. Visiting the workshop is by appointment solely and whether or not you wish to e book a morning studying session or you prefer to Richard’s skilled framing recommendation for that particular reminiscence or paintings, I extremely advocate you contact Pen Hill Framing to get the standard on your framing.
We actually loved visiting Richard’s workshop and seeing how he works, discovering the multitude of supplies accessible and seeing how artwork glass makes a considerable distinction when framing a particular artwork piece, there is no such thing as a glare by any means and in reality it seems invisible, we hadn’t heard about it earlier than or course, however we discovered it fascinating.
To e book a morning’s one to at least one framing course simply go to the Pen Hill Framing web site and enquire about availability.
Conclusion
Now we have loved our go to to Pen Hill Lodging immensely, I really feel it’s the good retreat for a luxurious rural getaway or to deliver a household for some high quality time collectively.
Being canine pleasant lodging additionally makes it a lot simpler to loosen up and unwind with out the concern of arranging canine care, and our Bandit had such a beautiful time as we did, going for nation walks and having the ability to return to an excellent and cosy house to cool down for the night time.
The king-sized mattress was additionally extraordinarily snug, and I slept extremely soundly. The homeowners, Jo and Richard made us really feel very welcomed. We can not thank them sufficient for such a beautiful, relaxed break.
