The Freeth
Sleeps 18
Herefordshire
Gardens and grounds
Take your dogs through the woodland trails, laze around on swings, potter the Robert Myers-designed garden with a gin in hand. Eat out on the south-facing terrace with the sun shining on your salad.
Visit the ducks in the pond. Book a clay shoot. Live an outdoor life on a classic English hunting estate.
Indoor pool and living spaces
The Freeth offers all the homely characteristics you’d expect of a former hunting lodge, and quite a few features you might not. Make memories swimming indoors in the heated pool with the sun streaming in through the south-facing windows. Bond over pool and table football in the games room. Help yourself to the toys, books and DVDs.
Put your feet up with the papers in the double-aspect sitting room. Perk up the fire with the bellows and let the breeze through the open doors do the rest. Come together in the evening for Sky TV in the snug. Post it all to Instagram over the Wi-Fi. Get together in a multi-generational marvel where beams and spotlights happily co-exist.
Cooking and dining
Keen cook? The four-door Aga, separate electric cooker and American-style fridge-freezer should get you salivating. But the pro chefs from A to Zest are always on hand if you fancy a break. Put your feet up with a Prosecco and savour the aroma as you wait on anything from hog roasts to celebratory feasts.
Need to take it even easier? How about booking the on-site restaurant? Native brings you hyper-seasonal, modern-British fine dining with super-local sourcing, including veg from the kitchen garden. Staying home? You’ll get all 18 around the dining-room table or al-fresco on the south-facing terrace for steaks and sausages on the gas barbecue.
Get your takeaways from Efe’s Kebabs, Pukka Pizza or Teme Street for fish and chips. Or head out and sit by the open fire with your dog at Live and Let Live, then tuck into deep-fried scampi or a trio of local sausages. Eat English with a French twist at The Peacock Inn. Or eat light at The Spotty Dog on afternoon teas and picnic bags.
Head East at Bahar for authentic Indian, Casa Med in Bromsgrove for a taste of tapas, or Dick’s Smokehouse for that meaty American-barbecue vibe. Try Pembroke House for slow-cooked belly pork or smoked haddock and asparagus lasagne. If only Michelin will do, consider The Bull’s Head in Craswall or The Homend in Ledbury.
Bedrooms
In the shadow of The Malverns, the morning rasp of a passing pheasant might be all you hear. So you’ll sleep like a rock in nine delightful bedrooms.
Bedroom one is a kingsize with en-suite bathroom, while bedroom two offers a kingsize or twin with an adjacent family bathroom. Bedroom three provides a kingsize that converts to twins and shares a family bathroom on the floor below with bedroom four, a twin (watch out for the low beam going in).
Bedroom five offers a kingsize double with en-suite bathroom, while bedroom six is also a kingsize with an adjacent family bathroom. Bedroom seven is a kingsize en-suite and bedroom eight a twin or occasional double that shares a bathroom with bedroom nine, also a twin.
Children welcome
Part of the fun of holidays with kids is the excitement and anticipation of the journey. But the trip doesn’t end when you arrive at The Freeth. Drive through the gates and you’ve still got a mile to go. Yes, things are big here. How big? With room for 18 in nine bedrooms, you’ll be rounding up long-lost cousins just to fill the place.
With two travel cots and two high chairs provided, you’ll even have room for your swimming inflatables. You’ll need them, too, for losing long afternoons in the heated indoor pool, with its south-facing windows and dedicated changing rooms. Stay indoors for hide-and-seek, Sky TV and Wi-Fi for updating Instagram.
Outside, you can walk the woodlands and feed the ducks from the bridge across the pond. Oh, and bring up to two dogs. Maybe they’ll help you discover the swings, play croquet, cricket and football, and find your way around the gardens. Finish your day with toys, books, and DVDs from the playroom or thrashing it out over pool and table football in the games room.
What people say
Clubs, boots and thinking hats
Stay on site to shoot clay, fish and get pampered. Head out with clubs to Herefordshire Golf Club, with boots for North Hill, and with thinking hats for Top Escape Rooms. Find grisly surgery at the George Marshall Medical Museum, furry cuties at Little Owl Farm Park and your favourite ice cream at Churchfield’s. Come home to comfy beds.
