Pop Up sites offer their visitors the chance to explore different places in the English countryside.
Pop Up Campsites present brief time period campsites in lovely rural settings and has a number of websites in Somerset, Sussex and Hampshire. The creators Jonny Townsend and Jay Varcoe, started working pop up inns in 2011 which have been often featured at Glastonbury. Jay designs and makes unique luxurious tents which were used for movie star weddings and personal glamping.
The website in Somerset is the one âglampingâ website featured by this co-operative and it was right here I had my first expertise of a luxurious tent.
What is Pop Up Camping?
Natural England has granted Pop Up Campsites a certificates that permits organisations akin to them to camp on land with no need a website licence or planning permission. Although they’ve the liberty to rearrange and supervise their website amenities as they see match however they’re topic to a minimal interval (42 consecutive days) throughout which the campsite can function.
Not solely do these websites provide their guests the prospect to discover completely different locations within the English countryside in addition they carry an financial profit to the area people as friends will probably be inspired to eat out domestically and to buy domestically. It offers them a possibility to strive a number of the scrumptious produce out there from small, particular person suppliers within the space.
Glamping lodging at Somerset
Pop Up Somerset is in a shocking, rural setting close to South Cheriton in Somerset. It occupies two corners of an enormous wildflower meadow ringed by timber. One space of the location caters for people, {couples} and households and the opposite is out there for teams that options the favored Tent House.
I stayed in a Safari Suite tent and it options all of the amenities I’d hope to seek out in a luxurious tent. Carpets and rugs lie on a picket base making the massive inside really feel very cosy.
Apart from a big double mattress, the furnishings features a couch, two armchairs, a dressing desk, and bedside tables. But better of all, it has en suite amenities, a correct rest room and a bathe cubicle with a rain forest bathe head. Any doubts I might need had about glamping (and I need to admit to some) vanished as I explored my pretty lodging.
Had I needed to do some cooking I might have used my separate kitchen tent (cooking utensils, crockery, glassware, and cutlery supplied) to organize a meal on my private hearth pit, with a grill and cooking gear.
But I used to be invited to a barbecue meal within the Circus Tent â a sitting room and eating space. This giant open-sided tent offers a snug house for friends to socialize and eat collectively. It was a really gratifying night within the recent air having fun with barbecued meals and ingesting the native cider.
How a lot?
The major website gives all kinds of tenting alternatives from pitch-your-own tent to the luxurious Safari Suite tent. These are all featured intimately on their web site so friends could make an knowledgeable alternative when reserving their keep.
Prices begin from £100 for a self-pitched tent for a 2-night weekend in July rising to £960 for a luxurious glamping expertise sleeping 8.
Whatâs Nearby?
I took benefit of my proximity to Felthamâs Farm, a cheese-making farm, to have a tour of the farm and learn the way they produce their award-winning comfortable cheeses. I began our tour by assembly the Oxford Sandy and Black pigs who’re very a fan of a trough filled with whey which might in any other case be wasted when the cheese is made. After strolling by way of the newly planted orchard and studying in regards to the crops within the herb backyard we went into the small cheese-making unit.
After pulling on some protecting clothes Marcus walked me by way of the cheese-making course of. After the tour I tasted two of the three comfortable cheeses produced right here. La Fresca Margarita and Renegade Monk have each gained awards. I loved each of them however I used to be notably impressed by the Renegade Monk, a blue comfortable cheese, with a beer washed rind.
I additionally visited Stourhead House and Gardens, a National Trust property 11 miles from the campsite. This spectacular Palladian home is surrounded by formal gardens and parkland encircling a big lake. I adopted the trail across the lake stopping to have a look at varied monuments on the best way. I used to be notably impressed by the Pantheon and loved the climb as much as the Temple of Apollo.
The space additionally gives strolling, driving, golf, swimming, days out at Stourhead and Sherborne, with its well-known abbey and The Fleet Air Arm or Haynes motor museums. There are two good nation pubs inside strolling distance and two extra inside a ten-minute drive.
Getting there
Pop Up Somerset is a simple drive from London or the Midlands. The website is at South Cheriton, between Wincanton and Templecombe and the postcode for a sat nav is BA8 0BJ.
