Beach Life
Now we don’t pretend that the North Sea Coast owes much to the Mediterranean of Ibiza or the Greek Islands …. but that’s not to say that it isn’t a great place to hang out and with the Suffolk Coast’s Area of Outstanding Beauty as a backdrop – it can be staggeringly beautiful. Here are some of our favourites:
- Aldeburgh – a long expanse of shingle and take the obligatory photo by Maggi Hambling’s fabulous Scallop. No access for dogs in the summer months
- Sizewell – yes it’s next to a nuclear power station but it’s beautiful and dog friendly all year round. Here’s Bruce with Ruby and next door’s border terrier Seve (yes as in the golfer).
- Shingle Street – remote like Dungeness but with huge pebble dunes. Beautiful and desolate!
- Southwold – a gentile seaside town. Apparently some of the candy coloured seaside beach huts can sell for up to £100k. Crazy!
- Walberswick – shallow and shandy and they like dogs! You can also go crab fishing in the inland shallows – probably not enough for a sandwich these are just tiddlers after a piece of bacon.
- Covehithe – a bit off the beaten track and no tourist facilities but the Times rated this amongst its top 30 secret beaches – a quiet, sandy beach running alongside a bird reserve.
Latitude Attitude
Most people wouldn’t associate our neck of the woods with contemporary music – for most its all about the classical music of the Aldeburgh Festival. For four days – Suffolk 13th – 15th July 2018 – of the year Suffolk brings in the talent. This year the headliners range from The Killers, Solange and Alt J – with everything in between. There is a lot more than music though – poetry, stand up and even spa treatments (no wonder it also has the reputation of being one of the most ‘middle class’ of festivals). Set in the grounds of Henham Park, part of the attraction must be that it is just such a beautiful place – grassy open areas and shady woodland. No Glastonbury quagmires here.
Although it’s a bit late this year – tickets sell out pretty quickly – if you do want to check out Latitude next year but don’t fancy a tent then stay at Five Acre Barn. We are only 20 mins away and can help get you there and away.
Bloomin’ lovely
During the building of our new guest wing, it was a pretty much impossible to develop the garden. Any gardener that has ‘had the builders in’ knows that they have big boots and are not averse to running over plants every now and again. As the build drew to a close towards the end of 2016, we started the ‘white garden’ in front of the Barn. It probably seems a bit pretentious (we have just stolen the idea from Sissinghurst in Kent to be honest) but we figured that it would look great against the black decking.
Having just criticised our builders (!) they were great at landscaping the ground, shifting soil around to even out the lumps and bumps. However by the end it was a bit of a quagmire with bricks and nettles not far below the surface. Just to complicate things further there is a network of pipes carrying waste out to mains sewerage (not a lovely thought but can’t be avoided!) so plants should be shallowly rooted to avoid causing any potential problems. Oh and three manhole covers….
The result is a roughly triangular patch with a gravel path dividing the garden into two beds – one of which is partly north facing and the rest baked in the sun. So all in all a bit of a challenging patch of ground.
Eighteen months later we thinking it’s looking ok. The bareroot yew plants lining the path, planted in the middle of winter (not a fun task) have, by and large survived. The beds have been planted with lots of delphinium, peonies, roses, lavender, wallflowers, salvia, nicotiana, alliums, ferns, hostas, hellebores, astrantia, valerian …… all white of course.
We would like to thank….
Our architect Greg Blee (www.bleehalligan.co.uk) asked whether we wanted to be entered into the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) East 2018 awards earlier in the year. We thought ‘why not?’ and then didn’t give it much thought. We were surprised and excited to find out that we had been shortlisted in March and the judges came round to visit in April. As we had already committed to go on holiday (a rare event!) we could only guess from the snippets of feedback we received from Greg and our B&B sitting friend James, whether or not Five Acre Barn had impressed the judges…..
Bruce and I then went off – with some trepidation – to the awards ceremony on 24th May just outside Cambridge. The long and the short of it was that we were an award winner and also received an additional gong for ‘Best small project’ (not that it felt very small to us, but it is in relation to university libraries, social housing estates etc.).
It was a very interesting event and a rare chance for people like us to hear about the incredible projects being undertaken in the area. Each shortlisted project was featured and the judges provided insight about how the project had been conceived and executed. Unfortunately we missed most of the feedback from the judges about our own build as we were busy gurning for the cameras with our awards – but we were really pleased that as well as celebrating the great work of Greg and Josh, our architects, they also acknowledged the excellence of our builder Paul Rolph. We have come to realise that builders are frequently the ‘unsung heroes’ and it was great to see him get some well deserved credit!
The awards are currently in the loo in the Barn – isn’t that what you are supposed to do with them?? We will contact Adele for some advice….
Happy Birthday Five Acre Barn
It’s hard to believe that our first guests checked in exactly twelve months ago – 8 April 2017 (even harder to believe that we had thought we would be ready by the previous November – apologies to the people whose bookings sadly we had to cancel).
It had been a big build up to opening – first the long search for a suitable site and then fourteen months of building and renovating – and we weren’t even 100% sure that we would enjoy the experience. Fortunately it turns out that – perhaps bathroom cleaning aside – that it is really a lot of fun.
That it has been so enjoyable has mainly been down to our wonderful guests. We have been extremely lucky, meeting so many interesting, enthusiastic, positive and supportive people (possibly more architects in 12 months than in the rest of our entire lives). As B&B newbies, we have particularly appreciated all the lovely things that our guests have said – it has really lifted our spirits and helped reassure us that we are on the right track. We have equally valued the more critical feedback along the way – all helpful pointers how we might further improve our ‘offering’. Sometimes we are asked ‘have you had anyone awful to stay’ and we can honestly say that we haven’t. Long may that continue!
We have also been really lucky to have had some great exposure in the press and online – on the beautiful interiors blog www.designhunter.co.uk, the amazing www.Outthere.travel magazine and www.zafiri.com (the intersection of style and endurance!). Not forgetting Emily Mathieson’s Guardian feature which really put us on the map and filled the bookings diary (and continues to do so)!
Here’s a few random things we have learned in the last year:
Tumblefluff – we designed the rooms (concrete and ply floors) so they were easy to clean…… however you will always miss a bit of fluff floating ready to settle once you have left the room. Sorry about that – we do our best.
Dogs can open doors – Murphy (the Great Dane) taught us this valuable lesson in January, who set off in search of his owners who had just gone out for a cross country run. It seems that doors with lever handles are a doddle for dogs the size of a Shetland pony.
Weeds can be beautiful – we kind of lost the battle against the weeds last year – especially the tree lupins that eventually formed an impenetrable hedge along the guest rooms. However we realised that our guests weren’t bothered what the birds and butterflies were visiting as long as they could watch them from their rooms.
It’s surprisingly hard to get out of the garden – whilst we do have a large garden we were surprised to have a few people struggle to find their way out (no names) – so we will be investing in some paths shortly to help with the navigation.
Gluten-Free doesn’t mean taste-free – quite a few of our guests have had dietary requirements and we have always done our best to accommodate them. It’s amazing to see how many great recipes there are out there that are dairy or gluten free or Vegan. Our greatest challenge was vegan, gluten and nut free. Thank goodness for coconut!!
People love lemon drizzle cake – maybe that wasn’t such a surprise….
So that was our mini review of our first years – fingers crossed for the next twelve months. If you have visited before then it would be lovely to have you back and if you are thinking of coming to visit the Suffolk Coast then please do come and try us out!
Down on the Farm
We are very lucky to have a public footpath at the bottom of the garden that takes guests, eager to walk off their full English breakfast, to either Aldeburgh or Thorpeness through Suffolk’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (we have a very detailed set of notes to make sure that no one gets lost – though rather worryingly a few have struggled to get out of the garden!).
We don’t always have time to walk to Thorpeness ourselves so we have a shorter route that we use to exercise Ruby – our beautiful Hungarian Wire Haired Vizla. As we do the circuit on pretty much daily basis, rain or shine, we have got to know Ute and Mike who have a small farm along the way. We always stop to hear how the animals are and – from time to time – feed the lambs. Glad to see that they are doing well despite the recent cold spell.
In case you pass by the little calf is called Rosie and all the lambs are named after herbs (it’s not the most commercially run farm) – so if you shout Rosemary, Dill or Nutmeg – some little critter is sure to come bounding over…